Any Veeky Forums self-proclaimed writers out there?

"... [t]his vanity about style is couched in an even more pathetic conceit: perfection. There is not a single poet who, as minor as he may be, hasn't sculpted (the verb tends to figure in his conversation) the perfect sonnet, a minuscule monument that safeguards his possible immortality, and which the novelties and effacements of time will be obligated to respect. It is usually a sonnet without curlicues, though the whole thing is a curlicue, that is, a shred of futility.

The perfect page, the page in which no word can be altered without harm, is the most precarious of all. Changes in language erase shades of meaning, and the "perfect" page is precisely the one that consists of those delicate fringes that are so easily worn away. On the contrary, the page that becomes immortal can traverse the fire of typographical errors, approximate translations, and inattentive or erroneous readings without losing its soul in the process. One cannot with impunity alter any line fabricated by Gongora (according to those who restore his texts), but Don Quixote wins posthumous battles against his translators and survives each and every careless version. Heine, who never heard it read in Spanish, acclaimed it for eternity. The German, Scandinavian, or Hindu ghost of the Quixote is more alive than the stylist's anxious verbal artifices.

I would not wish that the moral of this assertion be understood as desperation or nihilism. Nor do I wish to foment negligence, nor do I believe in a mystical virtue of the awkward locution and the shoddy epithet. I am stating that the voluntary emission of those two or three minor pleasures-the ocular distraction of metaphor, the auditory distraction of rhythm, and the surprises of an interjection or a hyperbaton-usually proves that the writer's overriding passion is his subject, and that is all. Genuine literature is as indifferent to a rough-hewn phrase as it is to a smooth sentence."

But also learn to recognize the difference between purple prose and long, complex, descriptive sentences that are also rhythmic and substantive. A lot of people on Veeky Forums seem to think Nabokov's prose is purple, which is patently untrue.

A coercive way to say your first sentence (that I saw on reddit) is the FACT that the reason we learn more words is so we don't need to use as many.

"There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from its counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of art. If a man, without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint on reading, hearing, or seeing another man's work, experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking that condition is a work of art. And however poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is not a work of art if it does not evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all other feelings) of joy and of spiritual union with another (the author) and with others (those who are also infected by it)."

-- Tolstoy

"...when I began writing, I was a young baroque like all youths are, on account of shyness. The young writer knows that what he says has little value so he wants to hide it, mimicking a writer of the 17th Century or a writer of the 20th Century. Now, instead, I don't think about the 17th or the 20th centuries. I try to simply express what I want and I try to do it with common words."

-- Borges

I've heard people call him a master of purple, so I dunno. Either he's purple, and actually does it right, or purple is a purely negative term, and he's simply descriptive and complex. It's just a question of definition, I suppose. He does use a lot of unusual words.

And since we're quoting for "Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will find that blood is spirit."
- Nietzsche

"We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss."
- Nabokov

"The new book was tired. Everything in it was the dear old familiar this and the dear old familiar that. God save us from meditations. What on earth had happened to this man? Decades had happened, that was all."

instead of masturbatory quote posting i'll give some real actual advice.

SHOW

YOUR

WORK

TO

OTHER

ARTISTS

it sucks, they wont get it, you're better than them, their work is shit so why should you care.

show it to other people, get feedback. when someone shits on your work or misses the point don't get mad.

the great chefs and woodworkers don't just get good fucking around with food and wood by themselves for a few odd hours a week. they eat shit while making footstools and cutting potatoes for years while learning the craft, and they pick their mentors wisely.

by the way, this is if you want to be an artist. if you just want to enjoy some good books and maybe bust out a little literary knowledge on dates as most of us are content to do, there's legitimately nothing wrong with that. but please don't delude yourself or adopt the posture of an artist without at least doing some of the legwork. it's just masturbation at that point.

Nabokov isn't purple. Think of the architect in matrix reloaded, that's pretty much what purple prose is. The language is so obtuse and pretentious that it becomes comical. Nabokov flows far too well to be considered purple

kid I'll just tell you right off the bat

MOVE TO NY

that's where anything's going to happen for ya

Aha. Found it myself. rule34.paheal.net/post/view/1521622#search=Wendy's
Thanks for the rec tho.

Thanks. That's the only reason I came into this thread desu.

do it for your own amusement. do it to create fap material. just don't expect recognition, or a career, or to be famous, or to get paid for it.

No problemo, and same. Cheers.