How has reading improved your life?

so this... is the power... of reading, Whoa.

؜Taught me how to do this ;o)

The only way to figure that out wd be to stop reading, then compare. The general public does tend to hold reading in contempt for some reason, probably because it doesn't have the patience to read itself. The alternative seems to me to be to spend alot of money doing stuff i really don't care to do. Or tv. Or vidya. I already get plenty of exercise. I have a physically demanding job, and a dog.

Helped me become literate

gave me night vision

Not really.

>Learned a lot about history
>Lots of entertainment and imagery
>Got me out of dark places in my life
>Inspired me to write
>Written several books
>Self-published
>Getting sales regularly

So yeah, reading has ultimately gotten to the point where it's making me money. As I continue to write/self-publish, I anticipate making more money, and I believe within 1-2 years I will be making enough money to where it's my full-time job. Feels pretty fucking good.

Gained a new perspective on the world. Insights into things I had somewhat of an understanding of and insight into myself

underrated

Helps me relax and get into a mindful state. Sometimes just fun entertainment.

؜Nigger

no it isn't

yes it is.

no its a waste of time

Tell me the title of one of your books user :)

got a super rich (think 9 figures) gf. she appreciated that i wasn't an infinite jest/gravity's rainbow reading brainlet and could actually discuss literature

good feel lads

Well I used to want to be in a SWAT team. Then I smoked weed. Changed my entire life in one second. All my desire to believe another lie was gone in an instant. Hence forth I became enamored with literature. Literally reading until my eyesight is blurry and often into the next morning daily. This is where the real change happens.

I discover conspiracy theory and uncover facts like jet fuel can't melt steel beams, cannabis kills cancer, raw food cures cancer, organic permaculture vs monocrop chem farms, a fluoridated vs natural water, monopolies in industry, Rothschilds, satanic cults, propaganda, slavery, ECT...

Dude reading has always been there for me. Always had my back when curiosity arose.

>I fucking love reading OP.

Where did you find her?

My most popular one is Living amongst the Dead. As realistic a take I can manage on a nitty-gritty zombie survival novel, it also has sex; you've been warned. Yes I realize Veeky Forums doesn't look too kindly on zombie stuff or apparently genre fiction in general. It's $0.99 for the eReader thing, but I'm going to be doing a big promotion around April 26th or so and it'll be free along with three of my other first books. My fifth one, a sequel to LatD, will be on the Kindle Countdown discount and my sixth book which is yet another sequel will be available by then. So If you'd like to hold off for when it's free, all good, I'll be giving Veeky Forums a heads up when it happens so they can peruse a few free eBooks.

I read that first sentence as "Killed sometimes." i.e., literature motivated you to kill people.

Reminder that while you posted in this thread you could be writing your piece.

Weak b8 man, absolutely shameful

Not only am I more intelligent than 90% of the people in my state, I can describe in beautiful English just how much smarter I am than the rabble.

Not it isn't

Better able to understand and empathise with others, gained more insight into more things than I realised there were things.

Also I can stave off crippling self loathing by talking to other people irl about shit nobody has heard off

This. My emotional intelligence rose up by 70% since I've read multiple books.

Literature has made me more of a pretentious scallywag. With the philosophical power that I have obtained I tear apart the arguments of all of my acquaintances. It feels good constantly knowing that you can -at any given time-take a giant cynical shit on any hope-full nobody's chicken shit argument.

Now I have dreams about being cast into multiverse Hunger Games with two potent mages as 'team' so we blanda app and go nuclear magitek

pretty cool teebeehee

Helped me write better, made me less lonely, and gave me more to talk about.

Nice bait

>Not only am I more intelligent than 90% of the people in my state
so you're still retarded?

Perspective.

It has really made me think.

reading maeks u smert
Nonsense.
Anime is genuinely better.
Does redtext work now?
9361386

tfw newfag

CAN I DO THIS????
9361386

9370627

...

ye boi

oh ok nvm i fixed it

؜Wat

hnnng

My life is pretty pathetic and it helps me feel like there's some elevated meaning to it.

TIHSLLUB SIHT HTIW EM GNITCARTSID POTS

؜Pardon?

؜Oh. How is this bullshit?

I know how it's done I just cbf restarting my computer to install a new language pack inorder to type utf

>he needs to install a new language pack
How embarrassing.

...

؜

﴿

...

thank you user, and congratulations on your publishing.

No problem, thanks a lot for the support. Worked on my 6th book a bit more this morning, got about 1600 words written. That seems to be fairly common of my writing habits; get up early (5:30-6:30AM), have a cup of coffee or two, then spend a solid half hour or so writing. Hopefully I'll get the drive to tackle it again at some point today but I find that I don't really have a set schedule, per se. I just sort of go with the flow, but I did a little bit of simple math in regards to my living expenses and found that I can probably live pretty comfortably on just $15,000CAD a year. I'll easily make more than that once I manage to get a job nearby, even if it's minimum wage, and if I can maintain what I've been making thus far then added to that will be around $200-700 per year at least which is a very nice little boost to income.

My sales have been quite steady however, and during promotions are fairly substantial jumps in sales. I anticipate that as I give hundreds and hundreds more free copies of my books as well as continue self-publishing, doing discounts, getting more readers and so on, that by the time next year comes (April 2018) I'll be making a lot more than $200-700 per year. I should be a full-time author within about 1-2 years I figure. Now that I've got a good rhythm of writing and my grammar has improved even further in the past half a year, I should manage to self-publish a book at least once a month. I'll continue to stretch my legs, try new things, and to see where my tastes and abilities are as a writer. I really can't wait to try my hand at some historical fiction, and have even been giving consideration to trying a borderline-fantasy Medieval-type story. Won't know how I like it until I try it, but I got a novellette, a novella, and a novel self-published last month in March so I'm very proud of that.

My 6th book, which will be a novel and the third installment in my little Living amongst the Dead series, is coming along well. Not QUITE as smoothly as I'd hoped; I wanted to try and maintain 5,000 words a day so as to have the book finished by today or perhaps the 14th at the latest but as of right now it's not quite at halfway finished unless it ends up being only 60,000 words long. I doubt it. LatD ended up being around 81,000 words, LatD:DD around 72,000 words if memory serves, and I'm hoping this one to be in the ballpark of 70,000-90,000 words but I really have no real way of knowing for sure, could end up being 100,000 words. It all depends on where the story takes me and when I think it's complete. Being a discovery writer is like an adventure in and of itself, very exciting stuff.

Seriously, if anyone reading this has a book idea that you've wanted to try writing but never got around to it, DO IT. I've wanted to write a realistic zombie-survival novel for YEARS, probably over half a bloody decade, but only finally sat myself down to give it a go last August.

Though on that note, I've heard people advising aspiring writers to NOT start with that 'big idea' you've got. I think there's some truth in it. My first book turned out pretty good, in my opinion, because I've been more-or-less writing as just a hobby for years before August 2016. So my grammar was already quite good (though with some flaws which I sorted eventually), my sentence structure, descriptive capabilities, I already had pretty good experience in all of it. A new writer might not have that, so start off with a sort of 'test book'. Come up with a different story, with different characters, and write that. Show it to people, perhaps get a proof-reader to look it over if you can, or if you can afford it get a professional editor then have one check it out, and learn.

After your first book, whether you self-publish it or not, you will have learned so much that your 'big idea' will turn out far better than it would have if it was your first book. Though like I said, I don't really regret having made my first book my 'big idea' one. Would it have been better if it were my second book? Maybe... but as it is, I love it, and surprisingly enough people are continuing to buy it almost every day. It's extraordinary. Anyways, enough ranting. Thanks again for the support and encouragement, user.

Hasn't, it made me depressed and I feel anxious and out of place most of the time now

Get fuct

So your "big idea" is a zombie story being written on the fly? Haven't read your book but is there a twist that separates your story from the others?

It had opened me up to a vast avenue of experiences, some blindingly ahead of schedule, some I would normally have to sacrifice a great deal to experience, some I could not experience personally without abandoning countless others, and some I would never be able to experience at all.

What I did with that, is to my credit. But what reading did for me is immeasurable.

Why user?

The term 'big idea' is probably not a good choice of words, but 'main idea'. My 'zombie story' is admittedly a simple one. Very realistic, very nitty-gritty, include real aspects of survivalism including one in regards to ammo that I think very few people have considered, with a pretty simple end-goal in mind but that's SEVERAL novels away yet.

Is there a twist?... ehhh, not that I can think of. I include some stuff that interests me. For instance, I fucking hate this cancerous third-wave feminism, so I included a feminist bitch to fuck with. She ends up getting more-or-less raped, but in the end, she starts to see that life with civilization was nowhere near as awful as she thought it was. Things have changed, she comes to understand, and so through the course of the book her character ends up making a huge change, which is surprising. Honestly when I first wrote her, I was figuring that she'd end up getting killed before long, but now I'm on the third book and she's still around... so far. I've come to kind of like how she's turned out, but still, just because I like her doesn't mean she won't die. She might. Maybe this third book, maybe the next, who knows? I don't.

SPOILERS CONTINUE, now with the second book (Living amongst the Dead: Dark Days). I eventually included a black lesbian character who ends up being someone she vaguely referenced in the first book. Wasn't initially planning to include this vaguely referenced character, but I did. Made her a 'bull dyke' I guess you can say, to play off the term 'bull queer' which I heard in the movie "Shawshank Redemption". Even tries to force herself on Tiffany, who is the former feminist, but in spite of her impressive height (5'10) and thin however quite toned/strong body, the chubby ex-feminist manages to push her off and bring her to her senses. She has a thing for redheads... and women crying. It just sorta happened. Also in the second book, there's a scene where she rapes and murders a pale, white, red-headed 17 year old white girl. Had some fun with mental imagery while she was simultaneously choking the girl as well as forcing her into tribadism (scissoring. basically, she choked her to death while 'humping' her).

So I dunno... does that count as a twist? Probably not. It's just me being a horny bugger, a bit of a perv, maybe a dash of sicko, and having just about a complete disregard for political correctness, BUT, I do not do things just to BE politically incorrect. I just make no effort whatsoever to go one way or the other with it. If I get an idea, I like it, and it fits, then I include it. I am also REALLY trying to keep the continuity consistent. Made difficult by including ammo counts, but I don't want anyone having infinite ammo or unlimited mag capacity, so people DO run out of ammo, are forced to reload, and also if anyone is too 'liberal' with their shooting then they may just end up running out. Chances of 'finding' more? Slim to none...

Shit, I probably should have included an initial SPOILER ALERT since I spoil a few parts of the first book, especially with the Tiffany character. Personally I hate spoilers, even minor ones, unless I expressly request things be spoiled like "what firearms are in what movie" or whatever. Speaking of which...

SPOILERS ON LIVING AMONGST THE DEAD SERIES FIREARMS!

I'm thoroughly /k/, and have a huge hard on for firearms and ammunition, so why not have fun? Richard, the main character, is outfitted with a No.4 Lee Enfield along with spike bayonet and a bandolier (could have gone with two, but only gave him one) with several 5-rnd clips of ammo. He used to collect firearms and stuff, so it's plausible that he'd have all this starting out. I think he starts out with... probably... 47 spare rounds of .303 perhaps, plus 9+1 in the rifle? 5 pockets in the bandolier, only 4 completely full with 2 clips each, 5th has somewhere between 2-8 rounds, can't remember off the top of my head.

His primary side-arm is a stainless steel M1911A1 Mil Spec, and uses 7-rnd mags instead of 8-rnd mags because he's a bit of a traditionalist even though the pistol is stainless. Doesn't even use it in the first book, well, except to kill a spider with it without firing a shot. Not much shooting in general in the first book; primarily bayonet action, which is why he still has all that ammo after around 6 months of the infection coming about.

Ends up finding a pump-action Police shotgun in a cruiser on the highway pretty late in the book, uses up the shells in it in Dark Days, and there was also a pistol holstered but it's right on that rotting corpse; no way the smell could be taken off of it, so he doesn't even bother. Oh yeah, and Tiff has some kind of polymer-stocked bolt-action rifle. I don't think I even name a make or model; damn near all of them look the same to me. It makes a return in the second book. A Chinese-made SKS shows up. Uh... I think that's it for the first 2 books. 3rd one I'm still working on, but I'll give away that an AR rifle makes an appearance, a lever-action in .45-70, an unspecified revolver that's used in an unexpected murder-suicide, aaaand... well, a decent number of others. The action does ramp up a bit in book 3, and even though Veronica (the black dyke) is clearly something of a bad guy, she does make herself quite useful to the group, even to the point where they'd probably all have died without her, so I enjoy the conflict between "she's kind of bad, but they kind of need her", not to mention in having flipped Tiffany about on her feminism then perhaps Veronica will as well eventually, though she will never 'turn straight'. That would just be insulting; she's clearly a very proud lesbian with absolutely no interest in men whatsoever. I'm not against her being RAPED by a man, but she will never sexually desire one. I just feel that would ruin her as a character.

everything is

i sleep with far more people now that i read 3 books a week

What are your political opinions?

Feminism!

FULL GOMMUNISM

I pretty much only read history books, and I'm doing history + teaching degree in uni, so it directly compliments that i suppose

btw, would thoroughly recommend "Caesar Against the Celts" by Ramon Jimenez, basically an analysis of the Gallic Wars by Caesar, providing the entirety of Caesar's life (specifically his wartime in Gaul/Britain)
It carries the passion of telling the interesting story of Caesar's character, his political dealings and his military triumphs while also proving inaccuracies in The Gallic Wars with up-to-date archaeology from multitudes of sources

I'm a self taught trilingual. And am now learning the sanskrit script; though i'll postpone learning it until i've learned the other languages in my list