Veeky Forums

Veeky Forums

If you were 25 and your parents encouraged you to quit the full-time job you've worked for three years which is burning you out, would you do so and spend a couple of months living with them to focus on your writing?

No. Living with parents after you're 18 is bad.

better have something to show for it or a justification if you ever plan on returning to the previous lifestyle.

a few months to find yourself wouldnt go over to well in most interviews if questioned about the gap in your work history

Depends on what your parents are like.

Even for a short period?

George Saunders lived with his parents for a whole year at 26 years old. Douglas Adams lived with his mommy for 6 months at age 25. Jack Kerouac lived with his mother for almost a decade on-and-off.

What's so bad about it if you don't plan on simply playing video games and NEETing out?

It's hard to get laid when you're living with your parents.

My mom is fine, she lives with her partner and they are both retired. They are on vacation all of January so I'd have the place to myself.

My justification would be my desire to leave New York and find work in my hometown, a smaller city. The fact is I'm never going to produce anything of value if I'm slaving away from 8:30am to 5:30pm in a job which is easy enough but mentally draining. I have tried, but II feel like I'm driving in a low gear most of the time after work.

>with her partner
Is your mom a lesbian?

I don't mind that. My focus is on my writing. The fact is many authors get their first stuff published around my age, and most (in my research) made the decision to work part-time (or attended an MFA) in order to find the time and focus necessary to write to the best of their abilities. I understand it's a big risk, but I feel like I am just degenerating into a placid, meek and unambitious moron by sitting here staring at spreadsheets all day.

No

Most do these days dude. Making it yourself is hard.

It's hard to get laid

>a couple of months
i don't think you can achieve much in a couple of months

Any more advice or experience?

I have to make a decision by tomorrow.

This, actually.

You might have the better part of a first draft done, unless you are a super motivated savant, or producing absolute trash.

>Any more advice or experience?
>I have to make a decision by tomorrow.
I did something similar to this... now im going at one full year of unemployment and i haven't written anything substantial

>americucks

At least it'll be some time for me to really focus on my writing. At the moment I am just letting it slip to the sidelines as I use my energy and focus on my "career". I realize that this job isn't going to break me or make me insane, it's just going to make me very tame and boring. I feel even a couple of months of free time is a good way of testing myself as to whether I really do want this. If I don't take advantage of that time I'll accept that I'm not as ambition as I thought. But seeing new writers getting published and then returning home at night tired and demoralized is just overwhelming my capacity to resist or assert my will on life. I feel like any writer worth their salt would at this point have simply quit the job and faced the monterary and social consequences because their art was so important to them. But maybe I am being romantic or something. It's just what I believe, though I'm struggling to convince myself that I shouldn't just keep chipping away an hour or so a night in the same job until I finish (another) novel.

faulkner wrote as i lay dying in six weeks

dfw wrote broom in a summer

Faulkner was an absolute genius and Broom was absolute trash.

if your goal is to write and your job is legitimately hindering you from that goal, you need to do what you have to do. Just try not to hate yourself once you become afraid you've made a grave mistake, be confident.

faulkner didn't just magically start writing and six weeks later ended up with as i lay dying, he had huge prior writing experience; broom is shit and dfw had lots of prior writing experience as well i'm sure

just don't regret it when you're out of a job with very little visible improvement in terms of writing, man.

broom wasn't trash edgelords. it has over 10k ratings on goodreads. it's an amazing book for a 24 year old author

The thing about regret is that it's difficult to know what you're likely to regret. For example, if I quit and go my own way, will I regret being independent but perhaps delusional more than I would regret not taking the risk and looking back at my time stagnating in an office chair? I barely ever follow my instincts, it's a big fault of mine. But if I don't trust them now and be confident and assertive and perhaps delusionally invested in my own success I don't know if I ever will. I'm no longer young, but I'm not old enough to have overwhelming responsibilities and so on. I ask myself whether any writer I admire would simply repress their drive and impulse for the sake of holding down a secure, tedious office job and each time I don't imagine they would. I fear I'm simply isolating myself from risk, failure and struggle and that this eventually will be a bigger failure than if I had tried and failed.

I'm literally doing the same thing. There have been times when I've missed the security of my old job and wished I've had a answer to "What do you do"? But ultimately I don't regret it, plus I've moved out and am working part time now.

>a couple of months

Moving back in with your parents after you've already lived alone for a few years is literally admitting that you have given up on life. After "a couple of months" have passed and you've accomplished nothing you'll go into full basement dwelling NEET-mode from which there is no escape.

>edgelords
>over 10k ratings on goodreads
>for a 24 year old author
kek'd
hey, man, i'm not trying to be hostile, but in my understanding you need to be really passionate about writing to become a good writer, so if you're having doubts whether you should do this to pursue your dream or give it up, maybe it's not that big of a dream after all. just disregard what others have to suggest on this matter and make up your own mind.

I would think seriously about how productive of an environment this will actually be for you.

Will you parents suck you into their bullshit with lots of obligations? Will you actually write every day? Do you really have something to say?

It could be an invaluable exercise in developing your craft, and you are only 25, so YOLO.

Alternately, you could focus on recharging from your burnout, and getting a better job, and building something that will leave you better off than the a time-intensive, high-risk move like working on a vague and unproven writing endeavor.

If you really want something, you would find time & energy. Maybe if you'd already been writing it would be worth considering.

Lel most people I know in there early-mid twenties still live with there parents (or other relatives) unless either (A) they didn't go to college and instead chose to work (and therefore now find themselves in shitty ass jobs with little of promise in their future), or (B) they're in college and their parents pay for their apartment.

This.

I suppose moving out of your parents' house with U$ 250k is better ey?

U$ 250k debt

>Is your mom a lesbian


See I too generally get the impression that "partner" implies a homosexual relationship. However, it seems that the word has become the go-to expression for non-married couples, gay or straight. Apparently our culture has become so uptight and restrained that people view the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" as juvenile or immature. Quite frankly though, this attitude seems rather disingenuous and insincere to me. Its as though adults tacitly view relationships that aren't maritally formalized, so to speak, as somewhat childish and unserious. They therefore feel the need to distance themselves from the "juvenile" and "immature" terminology of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", so as to affirm the seriousness and maturity of the romantic relationship with their "partner". Its as though any sign of premarital and youthful passion and uncertainty is to be viewed as immature and contemptible. In short, adults refrain from using the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" because they associate them with the unmarried relationships of youth, and therefore view them as indicative of childishness and immaturity. "Serious" and "mature" adults, as it were, do not have "boyfriends" or "girlfriends", they have "husbands" and "wives", or else "partners".

How old are you?

>posting a Sam Hyde image
>not realizing Sam Hyde was practically a NEET throughout his twenties living with his mom

If I had a book in mind and largely organized in my mind, yes. If it was just to go "Okay, time to think of a book to write." no.

I'm 26, unemployed, and live with my parents.

What's the problem here? Americans are so stupid.

OP here. I have already been writing. I've been shortlisted for some big short story prizes, I had a publishing house state their desire to publish a book I claimed to have finished when I was 21 (it was not something I wanted to be represented by in the end) and I have since written one full novel which was rejected a bunch of times and half of another novel which suffered from a flaw I couldn't dismiss. Now I am confident in my ability and feel sure that I am at least as talented as people five or so years older than me who have recently published their debuts. As for finding the time, I have done extensive research and barely any writers of any significance worked full-time while writing their debut books. Kafka is often used as a sort of overworked clerk who spent his nights writing, but in reality he hated his job and managed to negotiate a three hour working day when he wasn't travelling to sanitoriums etc. Bukowski is another writer who is often quoted for his attitude towards finding the time to write despite working a full-time job, but he only started seriously writing and publishing when the guy at Black Crow Press allowed him to be NEET.

I will have the home to myself from late December until early February, which is great. They are both retired and so no obligations, plus it's quite a big house so I won't be disturbed. As for a better job, the only definition of better for me at the moment is part-time. Reading Knausgaard recently and he narrates his twenties in about 50 pages and basically writes that he spent three months on one island writing, then another couple of months in some cabin somewhere writing. If I did that middle-aged women in HR would dismiss me as a disgusting Kafkaesque insect.

I've been listening to Chris Gethard's podcast Beautiful / Anonymous, and he gets people calling in with pretty similar situations. As a person with a successful creative career, he usually tells them to go for it, especially if they're young and have a good support system. I guess that's kind of what your twenties are for. From your post it sounds like you won't feel fulfilled unless you at least try, even if that means you might fail.

Like others have said though, I would take a hard look at your motivations and the potential obstacles before committing. Is writing important enough to you that you would find it fulfilling even if you never achieve recognition and you never make more than enough to just scrape by? Have you received positive feedback from friends and mentors that your writing is promising? Do you have a realistic view of what writing at home will be like day to day? Do you just want to escape a shitty job?

Good luck OP. You're a braver man than I am, and I really respect you for taking control of your life either way. You aren't alone; I don't think anyone our age actually knows what they're doing.

Whoops should have updated the page before posting. Sounds like you've already thought through a lot of this, and you're on a good track.

>middle-aged women in HR would dismiss me as a disgusting Kafkaesque insect.
>caring what women think at any age
>Bro, are you even trying to make it?

I'm kind of in an opposite situation. I moved back home a year ago after grad school. Been working freelance in marketing and writing on my own time. Now I want what you have—something stable even if it's shitty. I think being able to move out again and support myself would allow me to write more because I'd be less worried about the future.

What is it you do for a living?

>fags hurting themselves in a predictable and unsexy manner
Enjoy your gangrene!

It's not the women I care about, it's being blacklisted from finding a job because they will see that I haven't worked for months and will judge me, especially in this highly competitive jobs market, as being a lazy good-for-nothing NEETard.

OP here. I realize that I may be delusional, though I am logical and practical enough to appreciate that there is some reason to believe I can write something worthy of publication that I can be proud of, as I did write something in my first three months after leaving college that a publisher wanted to take on. As for escaping a shitty job, yes I do want to escape it but I'm not a traditional slacker and have not missed a single day through illness etc. I am a hard worker but I work best along with full control over whatever I'm doing. Always have, always will. The office environment encourages time wasting, gossip, dull conversation and a sort of staid, placid mediocrity. While I may welcome this environment in later years at the moment it makes me restless and deeply unhappy. Reading about Adolf Hitler as a young man you can tell something either very big or very small was going to happen for him, his principles were that obstinate and his will so focused (if only on not working). I've made the mistake I believe of believing that people older than me are by default wiser and so on than I am, just superior, but if I'm going to make it, if anyone is going to make it, I and they simply have to deny any external influence on my thoughts and life direction and simply remain stubbornly loyal to my own will and ambitions. This naturally leads to narcissism and delusional thinking, but I believe these two things are abundant in any person who has lifted themselves out of the rut of mediocrity inflicted by a culture and society which holds a deep distrust for those who seek to be "different" or who value the impractical

if you feel you're at a dead end in your career, take the time off to make yourself more "marketable."

you'll have way, way more free time than you realize, so expand your existing skillset/build new skills and also write. you may find career overlap with the things you enjoy, like journalism, copywriting, etc.

OP here. What did you study in grad school and how old are you?

I work in a start-up company in NY which has grown hugely in the almost three years I've been there. My job however is pretty easy though naturally repetitive. It basically involves organising huge quantities of data. I suppose on paper and in brief it seems interesting or challenging, but young guys aged 19 and 20 have started working for us without even graduating college purely because they are from the same upper social class as my boss.

The security aspect is great, and about once a week I'll experience a zen-like calm and gratitude for that, but otherwise I feel so restless and as though I'm selling out every principle I hold dear because I'm too pussy to take a risk. I'm from a poor background, which is one of the reasons I didn't pursue an MA / PhD, but I know no amount of money is going to make up for opportunities voluntarily missed.

>it's being blacklisted from finding a job because they will see that I haven't worked for months and will judge me, especially in this highly competitive jobs market, as being a lazy good-for-nothing NEETard.
>protip, this is a meme perpetuated by useless career councilors.

The big corporate dick is always throbbing and looking for eager mouths to suck it.
If you have actual skills, can actually make the CHA roll to do a successful interview, and can show up every day, you will be able to work your entire life.
Breaks in employment can be explained so many ways. "I had a sick relative I was caring for." "I took some time for personal development" "I wanted to establish a more positive life direction" are all real answers, and an interviewer will rarely, if ever dig deeper.

They are not the huge black marks people make them out to be.

The fuck? Have you ever heard of lying? Most people do it on their resume.

You're spending way too much time justifying your desicions to all these losers.

I'm a stand up comic and had to move in with my mom for four months so I could work less nights and build enough material to start booking road gigs. Most of Veeky Forums doesn't create anything or doesn't have a plan so they assume you're going to be a NEET. My only advice:

>Work part time so you can pay for your own expenses and luxuries
>Don't revert to childhood ways. I would cook breakfast in the mornings, drive my sister to school, and vacuum the house once a week. Just basic kindness that's going to make you feel like an asset to the house rather than a loser
>Treat creative work like real work. Set a schedule and follow it. Make it a goal to find a way to monetize what you're doing and set a deadline for when you can start generating income.

Undergrad was English/communications, Master's was just English. Luckily got a scholarship and an assistantship, so zero debt, which is a great start.

Do you live in the city? You must make a decent amount to afford it if you do. I live near New Orleans but would love to move somewhere bigger. I just know getting hired as a non-local is tough no matter the job.

Oh, and I'm 25.

May I ask how old you were when you moved in with your mom?

Also thanks for the advice. I definitely intend on working hard. These months are basically a way of testing myself to see how badly I want this. If I am so restless and unhappy in this job there has to be a reason, I just want to prove it's a noble one. Also how's the stand-up coming along?

Yes I live in the city. I earn $34,900 dollars before tax but rent eats that shit up as do living costs etc. I live like a monk though so at least I have some savings. I'm from a poor background, raised by single mother, so having any amount of savings feels great. I work with mostly upper class folk who are buying their first apartments already despite earning the same amount as I am. It's unreal to me, and it reinforces the notion in my mind that wealth is not something I want to aspire to have anything particular to do with. Not that earning money and caring for one's family etc isn't respectable, but I started with nothing and so the prospect of having nothing again isn't one that makes me too concerned. It's very reassuring to me to read about Fernando Pessoa and other writers who lived in relative poverty through their lives, but retained a sense of dignity and indifference towards their material possessions. Without romanticizing literature too much, I am quite convinced of the fact that artists of merit belong on the outside or at least the periphery of life, socially and monetarily and so on, and that such a position ultimately benefits their work. It's applicable in my case at least. Also what's wrong with New Orleans? Aren't you tempted to write the next Confederacy of Dunces / The Moviegoer / The Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding / Lamps Along The Levy? Also good luck to you. You may prosper in a larger city. I'm just not that sociable and hate noise and enforced busy-ness so I get overwhelmed easily here.

OP here. I'm 25 too and if you've attended grad school then you're more qualified than me and more likely to find a job in the future I assume. Personally I have an English Lit degree but not a great deal to show for it. If a recruitment person asked "so what skills do you have?" I'd likely be stumped. I am a wretched, asocial, unemployable child and I am likely never to succeed in any sociably-validated way. I am likely to live my life wading through the gutter of obscurity and consistent failure clinging desperately to whatever mental illness allows me to think at all highly of myself, repulsing those who get to know me in any meaningful sense, attracting no higher sentiments than pity or confusion from those who look at me and wonder why I appear to be pursuing failure and discontentment.

No, because living with my parents is awful. I stayed over for a week once while I was in the process of moving. It was also finals week, so I had some papers to work on. They made sure every hour was absolutely hellish. As soon as one of them woke up, the screaming started. One of them jealous about something or other, throwing accusations, threats, etc. All at the top of their lungs. There's not really a chance to sleep much, because they'll do it till midnight too. On top of each always trying to guilt me into picking sides, trying to goad me into liking one over the other. And if I don't do what they like in that regard, they'll start mocking me for petty/random things, like not liking the shirt I'm wearing.

I would just use my savings to take some months off if I was really feeling bad about the job. Living with parents would make me miserable.

Eh. I'm 25 and live with my parents and all they expect me to do is focus on writing.

Of course, there's the whole refractory epilepsy thing that makes me patently unsuitable for most types of work, so it's basically this or homelessness.

I like you OP. You sound like a practical, hard-working, ambitious guy. Judging from your past success and thoughtfulness, I don't think you're delusional. Anyway, maybe some delusion is necessary in pursuing a lofty goal.

Go for it with the blessing of at least one anonymous autist.

Yeah, New Orleans is a pretty solid literary town, but I've lived around here all my life and I'm sick of the climate and a lot of the people. I'd also like to live somewhere with decent public transportation, and that's not really a thing here.

I'm fine with the monk-life lifestyle, too. All I want other than necessities is to save some money, travel once a year or so, and buy used books and beer.

Thank you. I appreciate your encouragement. What I have to accept at this point I feel is that no amount of external discouragement should effect me. It's a fact that I'm being impractical here and behaving in a way that would make the majority of people (in my experience at least) dismiss me as an entitled, childish, demanding weakling with no appetite for life or true struggle. But I have accused myself of too much at this point, slandered myself too aggressively, and denied my instincts to have any influence over my actions. As a result I am repressed and unhappy, filled with anger that I know should only be directed at myself. I am prone to paranoia and obsessional thinking, and already I fear greatly that I have already left it too late and should have severely altered my course soon after college if not before college. In retrospect I wish I had never attended college and that I should have figured out that writing was my sole ambition in highschool and simply, dogmatically and with a deep unmoving conviction read and wrote and experienced life without the need for academic validation or the material comforts I have afforded myself in working full-time. Naturally such regrets are native to those who overthink their lives, and I can only hope that my desire to compensate for the abundant mistakes I have made in my life will result in my writing something of merit which isn't written to appeal to a demographic I don't much care for (marketing folk in the literary business) nor will misrepresent my perspective and natural means of expression. One of the things which has pained me the most over the past year is seeing people who found me curious, intelligent and ambition gradually conclude that I am just some miserable, narrow-minded defeatist with a penchance for masochistic self-denial. While the latter may have been true of my personality for the past year or so I simply cannot afford to live like this any longer. There's no point clinging to this lifestyle hoping that some cute, intelligent girl will find my reliability attractive or that my free hours will ever afford me the necessary amount of energy (I'm posting this from my armchair in my small, moth-infested rented room which costs almost half my monthly wage in an apartment I share with an obese trainee nurse who watches television at full volume to 1am every night despite me knocking her door and asking her to lower the volume at least twice a week) or focus to both read and write and review to the degree I judge to be necessary. Knausgaard barely worked a job throughout his twenties but still couldn't get published, and facts like that really make me anxious. Thomas Mann published his 700+ page debut novel at the age of 26 after presumably NEETing his wife through life (beyond a year working as an insurance clerk).

>Being this homophobic
>Being the this un-(self-aware)

You probably don't realize it, but I think you're somewhat missing the point and exhibiting a sort of heterosexual bias. The reason people say "partner" is so as to be ambiguous, and thereby be more inclusive of the homosexual community. By using the word "partner" to refer to your opposite sex partner, you are integrating the term into the larger English language community, and thereby being more inclusive. Homosexual individuals generally refer to their respective boyfriend/girlfriend as their "partner". It's true that the term "partner" has, until very recently, typically been used only by the gay community. It has thereby functioned to single them out. In the past, if someone referred to their "partner", they basically announced to everyone that they were gay. Now that straight people are adopting the word, they are thereby integrating into our larger cultural community, and thus making our cultural environment more inclusive, so that gay people no longer single themselves out by using the word "partner". In this manner, gay people can thereby retain their privacy because they no longer expose themselves, so to speak, by using the word "partner". So basically, by criticizing this practice, you are preventing progress and harming the gay community. I.e. you're a homophobe and don't even realize it.

I hope this is a troll post, but there isn't a hint of irony or self-awareness in here.

what the fuck am i looking at

I'm 18, going to college/part time job and pay for my own apartment. Just get roommates that arent shit and you'll be ok

You are going into some kind of debt aren't you.

>you have to choose your entire vocabulary because any specificity might make someone uncomfortable

We should stop using all gendered pronouns because of trans people and we should also remove all references to using our bodies because of the handicapped and actually we shouldn't speak English at all because that identifies us as an in-member of the Anglosphere and this demonstrates our privilege for being able to speak the lingua franca while so many poor souls out there can only speak Spanish :( :(

25. Went home for 8 months. Now applying to MFAs and living in a new city.

OP please post a sample of something. I'd be very interested.

And how am i supposed to get money to live alone just after i finnish high school?

Faulkner was also prone to flights of fancy and "embellishments" when speaking about himself. Scholars doubt that he wrote As I Lay Dying in such a short spurt.

>Apparently our culture has become so uptight and restrained that people view the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" as juvenile or immature.
Most other languages don't have those terms tho. And they are a bit juvenile tbqh

>you're a homophobe
Your is a homophone*

The boy lay foetal across the car's back seat, bars of streetlight scanning his sleeping body, the strained white of his mother's eyes returning once more to the tilted rearview mirror. Occasionally the boy stirred and moaned aloud in half-sleep, and his mother reached a hand behind her to usher him back to what she could only hope were dreams. They were alone on this stretch of highway and had been for some time.
_______His bruises did not hurt, nor had they appeared as a result of being hit or kicked or shoved into lockers at school. The mother knew both that her child was quiet and that he was not as tall as the boys he had once called friends. But these were not the bruises of a child who had been beaten physically. She had repeated this several times to the doctors who examined him and to the social workers and school staff who had sat with brows raised looking anywhere but at her with those expressions she just could not bear. She was a good mother. Not the best, but better than her own. Each time she communicated this fact aloud she could no longer tell whose accusations she was defending herself against.
_______In the backseat the boy was sitting up, twisting soft fists into sockets, yawning. The bruise that covered one side of his face reminded her of a girl at school, never quite a friend, her birthmark something she had never taught herself to ignore.
"Mom," came the boy's tender voice, as quiet as it was when he suspected her as being asleep. "Mom are we going someplace?"
She saw his wide eyes in the mirror, noticed the expression of concern.
"I told you where Tommy. We're going to make you better kid, remember?"
The saliva in her throat was thick.
Tommy sat on his hands, prodded his tongue against the inside of his cheek. She had counted seventy-five this time. The notebook in her handbag listed each one she had found this time around, detailed its location and diameter, how dark it seemed. "And what does this one say?" the doctor has asked again and again, but now her handwriting had improved. If nothing else she was a good mother.


That's the beginning of my novel so far.

>foetal

Stopped reading here, English is my second language, and it is fucking painful to read "foetus" instead of "fetus". Please. Just fucking spell it reasonably.

>English is my second language,
No shit you ESL fuck

kek

This isn't OP