Wants to write a book

>wants to write a book
>didn't even read a single book that came out this year

How do you justify this?

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nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Burn-t.html
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what's the problem with that?

You can't become a contemporary author if you refuse to engage with contemporary literature.

So you're saying I could become a past author? Sweet. I'll just publish Lord of The Rings before Tolkein does and live off the profits.

why not?

Because you'll be out of touch with the literary community. You'll never be published if all you've ever read are the "classics".

What a cock nozzle you are. I can write whatever the fuck I want. Many great geniuses ignored their world surroundings when they wrote their greatest pieces you cuck

"You can't write great books unless you read shit books."

>Many great geniuses

Name one.

Also, hate to be the one to break it to you, you're not a genius.

>all contemporary lit is shit
>thinks he'll be the sole exception

Delusional.

Most contemporary lit is gutless leftist claptrap so you'd be better off disregarding it.

Contemporary novelist: "After returning from *~*~*~*~*MCDONALD'S~**~~**~*~*~*~*~ (where he ordered a ---BIG MAC--- and ][][ large fries ][][) the protagonist sat down at his desk and opened his &&& MACBOOK PRO %%%. He clicked the !!! Google Chrome !!! icon and went to his favorite website: ***YOUTUBE***.

OP: Holy shit, this is me.

MFA programs plebeianizing literature for mass consumption. The novel is a dead form, a shambles refusing to give up.

6/10 b8, but however. Is there any evidence of what you just asserted?

Clarice, duh

Love all the hate this is getting. He's right. If the only book you've read that's been published in the last 20 years is infinite jest, you don't stand a fucking chance. You'll just come off as a try-hard contrarian douche who actually thinks literature is on the way out -- in which case, why are you even trying to get published?

Read contemporary stuff you want to get published in the current literary world. If you don't write/don't care about publication, read whatever you want.

Expecting to be published without reading current works is like studying solely Frued and expecting to become a psychologist. It's not going to happen. And besides, you want to know your competition. Saying contemporary lit is bad is just the worst excuse to not read current authors. Stop being a pussy and take a risk on something that isn't already regarded as a classic.


(I work at a publishing house and have won money in writing contests.)

This is correct. And at the same time, it is irrelevant.

Very few people genuinely interested in literature care to read new publications (as this thread demonstrates), let alone the common folk. Yet everyone is trying to publish their shit, expecting that somehow this norm will make an exception for them.

I fall into this fallacy.

I don't even know why I'm eager to write at this point.

I read Infinite Jest already. I never have to read anything ever again.

contemporary novels are brought to one's attention via marketing and hype. a few will be classics, the vast majority will be forgotten. if you just want to know what publishers are into these days, sure, read new novels. if you want to learn the principles of great writing, which you can then APPLY to writing about the modern world, read (get this) writers who are actually great. reading new novels you will VERY OCCASIONALLY read a writer who is actually great. the vast majority of the time you will be reading crap.

Do you really believe the shit that comes out of your own mouth?

>you don't stand a chance
Who are you to say that?

Only read Houellebecq, he's the only mirror we have left

Almost nothing written in the last hundred years or so is worth reading.

>caring about being published in the digital age

I could give you my theoretical novel right this very moment desu.

I've tried getting into contemporary literature. It sucks. Publishers wouldn't know a good novel if someone smacked them in the face with one. We're in an age of low suffering, extreme introversion and social isolation. Good luck finding a writer with the required sensitivity and self awareness to write something that isn't hilariously naive, or ostentatious and praise-seeking.

There's one important element I think you're missing, which is that people write different things.

People write historical fiction all the time. What's more relevant to a historical fiction author, contemporary literature, or literature from the time period you're writing about? Does it really benefit you more to know how other people are writing about 1500s China in 2016 than how Chinese authors wrote about 1500s China in the 1500s?

So if you want to write a "Great Gatsby for millennials" or something, then yes, you need to read contemporary literature.And if you want to write in particular genres like fantasy and science fiction it's probably a good idea to make sure you've read the classics as well as at least some of your contemporaries.

>this year
Nothing wrong with that

Okay so what are some specific contemporary books I should read?

>wow Keats you're such a fucking retard why do you read old-ass poets like Shakespeare and Milton instead of engaging with great contemporary literature like Pope?
>wow Petrarch you're such a fucking retard why do you read old-ass Classical Roman and Greek texts instead of modern poetry? lel stop living in the past faggot
>wow Eliot why aren't you engaging with contemporary Victorian poetry and reading lame-ass old shit like Dante and Donne? fucking retard you'll never be a great poet

Sam, deja de boludear y ponete a estudiar.

>implying new authors have anything to offer over the classics
We have a Western canon for a reason.

B-but I did read a book that came out this year...

Retarded

I don't know how to find good new books, Goodreads is no help at all.

Nonsense. If you want to learn to write well, reading the greatest books ever written will teach you more than some current year pleb shit about marginalized voices

I write for myself, not for you icky boys to leer at me.

You'll never compare to any of those poets. Your dreams aren't dreams -- they're delusions of grandeur.

>you're shit because I say so
Looks like you're projecting kiddo

I'm one of the few people you'll meet who's written more books than they've read.

I keep reading books that came out like 20 years ago.
I wont write about facebook or twitter or a technological thriller so I dont think it matters.

Seconding this, what's some Veeky Forums lit that has come out recently?

If you're even remotely engaged with some sense of the popular world your work will seem 'contemporary' — there's no such thing as a purely anachronistic writing.

Teach me how to get a job in publishing, assuming you aren't lying.

I read The Clintons' War on Women and Clinton Cash.

OP asked for books, not trash memes from retarded burger people

Actual good books were released this year? Considering this hasn't happened in a few decades I have my doubts.

not a single good book in decades?

wow, setting quite a high bar for your own novel there

That salt makes me so hard.

How about this: I'm a spic, born, raised and living in Latin America.

>literary community.
cringed

I have to admit, family. Uncle in the industry. He got in about 10 years ago through a friend. More so than your average job, publishing is about networking, which is awful because networking sucks.

It's kind of a cool story, so here:

It didn't hurt that I was always into literature and writing (it). Mid-way through my junior year of college (first year post-grad now), a co-worker of this uncle brought a story to my uncle and said "you should read this." The coworker unknowing handed him a story of mine that won a moderately sized writing contest. Uncle read it. At this point, I had been pestering him for a job/paid internship right out of school. He called me. I was in class and missed the call. Texted him saying so. He replied "leave." I thought someone had died or something. I called him back from the hallway and he told me I had a job whenever I was done with school.

Started nine months ago. Read all day, write all night. I'm going for my PhD in the fall and he's keeping me on with enough hours to pay for living expenses.


More of the naysayers of contemporary lit:
I've read hundreds of manuscripts at this point. Trust me, theres a lot of good stuff of there. Just because it's not difficult to read doesn't mean it's not good. It's modern language. It's naturally going to be easier to move through.

Best book to be released within the past month: Chabon's Moonglow. Maybe an obvious choice, but I loved it. Got to meet him a few months ago. He's a cool dude. Even if you don't like his other work, give it a try. But make sure you read Gravity's Rainbow first. Lots of references to it.

And no, I'm not a complete pleb (according to Veeky Forums's memes, anyway). Favorite books: Auto Da Fe, How Green Was My Valley, Novel With Cocaine, JR, The Third Policeman, Look Homeward Angel, Beckett's "Trilogy," In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, Ionesco's plays.

>You'll never be published if all you've ever read are the "classics".
Literally all writers until the 20th century were educated exclusively in the Western canon. You're just trying to justify not seriously taking the time to study the great works of yesteryear.

Have you ever read anything that truly felt unique and seminal, like a contemporary Prufrock? Or is it all just decent but boring contemporary lit?

Ask the crickets.

How is literature and art in general not just stroking our own penis and everybody clapping at what a great penis you have?

delillo, pynchon, the american pastoral jew i forgot his name -- philip roth (too lazt for backspace), joseph mcelroy, mccarthy, etc

Because literature is your best chance to satisfy others, user.

I have read 19 and a half books this year. What do I win?

So if I only read Shakespeare and write a poem will I be considered a Renaissance-era poet?

>old, established authors

I think I've read three things in total that feel "seminal"/monumental, none of which were poetry. None of them are out, though, but they are being edited right now. I obviously can't divulge much. One is from a sort of minor literary figure who has been published. The other two are from essentially random people -- short stories in random mags before these bigger things. One of them is a 1500 page manuscript that everyone here loves. It'll end up being around one thousand pages. This is somebody's debut novel. I think it will turn some heads, and I'll certainly be posting about it when it's released (not for a while).

I've read close to 200 pieces since starting here (keep in mind that a lot of these aren't complete books). So 3/200 that I fucking loved is pretty good, especially considering 100 of those were utter shit. Rejects.

I think Kyle Minor could do some monumental things for literature. He's young. I've seen him mentioned maybe once here before. Read Praying Drunk. Short stories. He's moving away from the whole idea that short stories need to be epiphany-based, but he's certainly literary. Joshua Cohen is also great. Ben Lerner, too.

Look into them. And don't give up hope. People thirty years from now will be saying literature is dead, and it still won't be. There will 100% be classics from this year and next, and the next, etc.

Debt from the college classes you're taking, or low income from the part-time job you're working

Your allusion is stupid on a multitude of levels. Firstly Freud is almost completely disregarded by today's academic community where as the authors we read are still thought to be the best of all time. Secondly, it's not as if any major advances has been made to the art of telling a story, you still have to write compelling characters, and good prose in an enjoyable setting. Furthermore we can see tons of examples of already successful authors who's primary influences were not their contemporaries, in fact I would say that most authors were most heavily influenced by the classics and the authors of the generation prior to theirs.

>He's moving away from the whole idea that short stories need to be epiphany-based
Nice. I'm at an early stage of writing, and I very much fall into finding/writing about epiphanies. What's the way out of that mindset, according to Minor?

As far as Veeky Forums figures go, Joyce, Delillo, and DFW to an extent (esp. in his short stories), are all _very_ focused on epiphanies. Whereas Pinecone and McElroy not so much, although it's harder to put a finger on what they're about (other than "systems, man"). Curious to hear/read some other contemporary takes.

Yeah, I do the same thing. Reading Minor helped me move away from that. And honestly, I think Pynchon and McElroy are still sorta epiphany-ish, but the epiphanic feeling comes from realizing what a system is, and it's supposed to occur within the reader rather than any one character, which I guess is the essence of postmodernism.

Don't get me wrong about Minor -- he still write some epiphanic stuff. I guess he sort of blends the two -- systems and characters making realizations. He writes with too much distance from his characters to really have, say, an epiphany like Eveline's. It feels like he's watching over these people from far overhead, and he somehow makes them (the stories) very personal, almost universal. They're moral stories. He never says "this is how you should behave," but he's always asking the question "why do these things happen and why do we react in these particular ways?" To be honest, I haven't done much analysis of his work, but for writing that's simple (but beautiful), he says a lot. I think this a bit reductionistic, but he's kinda like Faulkner blended with Carver. I can't put my finger on his influences really. Those are the two that come to mind, though.

Read his stuff.

Did you like Night Soul and Other Stories?

>Read his stuff.
I will, and I appreciate your analysis and the other recommendations above. I have to sprinkle contemporary works inbetween the non-ones in my queue.

re Night Soul: I have to reread it at some point tbqh. I didn't know what I was walking into when I picked it up, so I spent most of my time frustrated with it. And I made painfully slow progress because I would always loose my place in the sentences. But when it works, it really works. And I found myself connecting the dots days after I'd finish a story. Definitely a writer that I'm more "fascinated" than "moved" by. This was a really great overview, and mentions the 'topology, topology' line, which was one of the lines I was probably most captivated by:

>nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Burn-t.html

You seem like a switched on individual. Why aren't you writing the great contemporary novel?

>The Third Policeman
Yes.

It's really hard to write a good novel. I'm three years and 250k words into drafting of my first novel (still haven't completed a first draft) and I'm still confronting questions like "what is a novel supposed to be?", "who am I writing for?", "how will this character/incident be received by the reader?", "am I wrong about my society, the direction it's going in, the people who live in it and what they think and feel?"

There's one thing I'm certain of: I'm not writing for the masses. There's going to be material in here that only outsiders are going to understand.

And that brings more hesitation in me, because I'm sensitive to how cliche alienation has become as a theme. I feel pressured to provide an answer to everything, rather than plop down a cowardly, 'oh boy, life is just so tiresome and vulgar, huh?'

Anyway, when I finish it, I intend to freely distribute it, so I'll come here and post it for you guys. If I make any money at all, it'll be from voluntary payment. I think it's a lot easier for a new writer to get someone to pay you after they read your novel rather than before, rather than cross your fingers and hope some desk jockey thinks your work is marketable enough to pay a New Yorker to provide a blurb about how your work is "staggeringly mature".

He's giving proper advice, you'd do well to listen.

This makes me feel much better about my own progress.

>Literally all writers until the 20th century were educated exclusively in the Western canon.
Wow, the Chinese sure were cultural cucks!

...

He'll be the sole exception if he doesn't read new lit

>I have to admit, family. Uncle in the industry.
Woo, that was close.
I was worried for a second I had to take you seriously.

This contemporary literature argument is hilarious to me.
You don't even need to read literature to be a good writer. Do you think great painters just study other artists works all day?
Art is the same. As long as you immerse yourself in the world around you you will be a good artist.
The most important thing is to be a constant observer. Also, write a lot.
Your writing is not contingent on what you read. It's contingent on the environment you grew up in and live in now.
This is all from my experience as a writer/painter.

It's OK as long as you write in verse. None of the verse authors knew how to read. Also it helps to have slaves, maybe a secretary or amanuensis to suck your dick and stimulate the muses and record it for posterity while you sip psychedelic wine and eat olives.

>You don't even need to read literature to be a good writer

This is complete and utter bullshit.

Can you prove that?

Whether they write pleb YA shit or high class stuff, all published authors will tell you the same thing. Read, read, read - write, write write.

I know of no modern author who have somehow managed to write something worthwhile in a fucking vacuum.

But I'm not talking about being in a fucking vacuum. You're still exposed to words. You're just not reading books.
I personally read every day but it's because I like books. I don't somehow think books make me a better writer. I think in the beginning it gave me an idea of how people write but really it's not necessary.
Unless you just want to copy the styles of past writers which seems to be the case with a lot of modern authors.

There aren't any good books these days.

t. bitter failed writer who thinks everybody is as shit as him

I bet you unironically think that "everything has already been done"

Hardly. In genres like science fiction and fantasy you might have fantastical worlds with little-to-no grounding in our own world beyond some cursory similarities between key events. Nobody expects Elven Rowling or Xorblaxian Abercrombie to make a big appearence in stories like that, so what bearing should they have on the narrative?

That isn't to say that reading modern stuff is a bad thing. If you have an interest in it or it entertains you, then sure, go for it. But implying that you need to know whats trendy to write your own narrative is just ridiculous.

>I have to admit, family. Uncle in the industry.
literally a shill

The Chinese had their own canon.

Freud is mostly disregarded by academics because he contradicts liberal dogma

You are clinically retarded.

>I can't do it cause it's hard
millenials everyone

Shame they never used it 'till the 20th century.

>nitpicking
just go to reddit buddy

>letting just any old nit scramble through the crackling folds of your creamy, perfect, softly wintring hair

t. depressed, disillusioned millennial who is too dumb to write books so he tries to prevent others from doing so

How would a publisher tell that I don't read contemporary literature? Why would it matter?

He would be able to tell if you're not writing YA or le so depressed and empty ironic meaningless postmodern life millennial lit

Prose style. That's the only thing that actually changes through the years.

Freud was right about literally everything.

What if the reason my works don't read like other contemporary authors is that I've read all the new stuff and dislike it?

It'll pick up some stuff.

You are talentless.

>I bet you unironically think that "everything has already been done"
What hasn't been done?

Not your mamma, that's for sure.

Who is this cum conquistador

Except literally all of those poets were reacting to their contemporaries. Yeah, they read old shit, but they were all firmly grounded in their time.

Do you even listen to yourself, dude? Eliot read so much Pound it's ridiculous.

That is pretty sure, yes.