How's the writing career coming, Veeky Forums?

I work on writing a lot, almost daily, but have nothing to show for it thus far. Waiting to hear back from one publication and one contest but hopes are pretty low. I think my writing is developing as I keep working on it though, and that is a nice feeling.

Once my school ends I plan on committing a lot more effort to the exposure, quantity, etc. side of things.

I don't really feel like writing, but I'm 24/7 stressing out because I'm not trying to write all those ideas that come to my mind before falling sleep or in the shower
I don't really know what is my fucking problem and how to sort myself out
I wish I could go back to when I was an angst driven teenager with some sort of passion in endless uncomfortableness, for some reason I remember I used to think that art and creating it had some sort of positive quality to it but now I don't really get it, I feel so vapid, there is no way that something worth a shit could come from someone as me, or at this version of me. Maybe tomorrow...

I'm operating on almost zero budget and let's be honest, it's gonna be a "pretentious wank fest" whatever that means. I would like to put it out but I'm not sure how much people will like it. I'm afraid to say more because of the habit this board has of ruining my drive. It's not an adaptation of the new York trilogy though, it's a lampoon of South wisconsin lower middle class, a look at collegiate pretention, and highly self referential. Think Adaptation mixed with exit through the gift shop and making a murderer, sprinkle N.Y. Trilogy and Confederacy of Dunces on top.

On the other hand, any Veeky Forums screenwriters in SE Wisco wanna help out my kik is therealljefe.

...

>I don't really feel like writing, but I'm 24/7 stressing out because I'm not trying to write all those ideas that come to my mind before falling sleep or in the shower
this, fuck
considering giving into pretentiousness and buying a recorder

Being a rich author at any age is a pipe dream. No idea why people get this idea that authors are super rich. Only branded authors like King and Patterson reach truly rich levels and that takes years and a solid business team.

>considering giving into pretentiousness and buying a recorder
what? why? to record what?

Nice, what journal?

Same.

When I had that dream I was 11, so wasn't particularly well versed on the average income of an author

Awesome. I've got a few short stories published too. Haven't won any contests yet, though. I've got a few more out for submission now, and I have enough written overall that I've collected them and am trying to get something done with the collection.

Wrote 2 books onto my 3rd.

Understandable. It can seem glamorous I suppose since authors go to so many different places to do reading or panels, etc. People don't realize that this is all part of the marketing budget for the publisher and not just the author going around of their own volition.

Post Shit, Get Crit.

>write 20,000 words of novel
>lose interest for like a 6 months
>try to finish it
>reread what I have
>cringe at litterally everything
Anyone else know this feel?

Check this out: I'm replying to myself

Yep
Everything I have ever written outside of a single villanelle and other shit free-form poetry is incomplete because I move on from ideas so fast

Its coming along. Work keeps me busy

>Writing for money.

>not wanting to be able to support yourself doing what you love

I used to want to be a writer but then all my reading actually got me too woke to have such ambitions.

I just meditate and try to be kind now.

I gave up on it and work in digital marketing now. Its nice, I was able to afford to move to a much cooler city and can take weekend trips to the country now where I picnic and read.

I have fallen off writing pretty much completely, though.

I just got an A for a two page short story, I think I have a bright literary career ahead of me

Only thing I write is code.

He's talking about those retards who go into it because they want to make a lot of money.

Even the most popular guys are lucky to clear 70k and a good chunk of that comes from doing the con/bookstore circuit.

The autists in this thread don't even remotely understand how much time and effort some of these guys put into that shit. That's why if I do make it I hope it's only enough to live comfortably.

I just want to create stories and fun characters. I don't want to actually fucking interact with the people who wind up reading my shit.

Don't ever procrastinate something because of 'schedule' or 'it'd be better if i did it tomorrow after i thought about it a bit' ever again. Just do it the moment you think about it.
>i know you won't, but hopefully some lurker will

>How's the writing career coming, Veeky Forums?
for 99.9% of people here a "writing career" is a lottery ticket. everyone loves to daydream about what they would do if they won the lottery just like Veeky Forums loves to daydream about what they would do if they were a writer. problem is nobody here writes enough to even be considered to have a ticket to a writing career. most everyone here has better chances of winning the lottery because they can at least buy a ticket for that.

You're just jealous of my talent

i know you're just memeing but im totally convinced that work ethic trumps talent every single time. being successful at writing is probably 90% work ethic and 10% talent.

I have given up sharing my work on Veeky Forums because then I won't be able to get it into literary journals. They're sticklers about your work not showing up anywhere else before you get it, even a public message board.

How do you define "success"? My favourite authors produced their great work with great effort, sure, but not writing merely for the sake of a career. They wrote because they had the will to write something meaningful, the divine spark to write it brilliantly and the wisdom of applicable experience. I feel like you're defining a successful writer as someone like Steven King shitting out marketable dreck twice a year

>I feel like you're defining a successful writer as someone like Steven King shitting out marketable dreck twice a year
king is mega superstar successful.

>How do you define "success"?
getting published

>they had the will to write something meaningful, the divine spark to write it brilliantly and the wisdom of applicable experience.
you're romanticizing the shit out of writing. how are you even able to write if you're sitting around waiting for some "divine spark" to jolt you?

>but not writing merely for the sake of a career
you fell for the meme. everyone wants money for their writing so they can continue writing, aka a career.

this is your brain on consumerism
would you rather be a success like Hermann Melville or live a lie like Stephen King, who proclaims himself as the literary equivalent of a big mac? If you wanted money you would get an actual job

I've wrote a novel, wrote a whole heap of poems. What do I do with them?

I'm under no impression that I will become a career writer

>if i tell everyone how much i dont care about money then some benevolent universal force will grant me riches
that's not how it works, chief. you're deluding yourself.

>would you rather be a success like Hermann Melville or live a lie like Stephen King, who proclaims himself as the literary equivalent of a big mac?
i already told you that success to me is getting published.

>If you wanted money you would get an actual job
stop pretending like you're some pure artist without any ambition other than "the art". it makes you sound like a loser and it's cliche as fuck.

>I've wrote a novel
how many words? genre?

Is this b8 or are you just really into Ayn Rand? I desire a living so I work for it in fields other than amazon smut, because it's not as profitable or tenable as working conventional jobs, which I believe is more conductive to good writing through the wisdom of experience which I mentioned earlier. If this isn't bait, perhaps you're simply autistic if you can't understand an ambition beyond material profit from literature.

>you can't understand an ambition beyond material profit from literature.
you keep pretending like money is my only driving ambition meanwhile you're actually saying that money means nothing to you. im saying that money is a part of everyone's equation. if you pretend like it's not then you're either lying or deluding yourself to the point that nobody will take you seriously.

are you deliberately misinterpreting the posts or are you just slow

Obviously it is going terribly, everyone on this board just shits on writers that have been successful, like sanderson for example, and don't learn or accomplish shit from said person. Get good.

>I realized I'm an idiot so now I'm just going to troll
the post

Good to see everyone else is having this problem

I was averaging $0.50 a day, however with the addition of the boost in sales during promotional periods I'd end up with $50 a month. So far in May I've been averaging about $1.25-1.50 a day and my promotional period is just starting today. My first four books are free for ereaders, and my fifth book (sequel to first book; Living amongst the Dead: Dark Days) is on a Kindle Countdown discount in the UK. 0.99 British Pounds from today until May 21st.

For anyone who decides to check it out, I hope you like it! Even if you don't want to spend money, feel free to check out the free books! If you have Kindle Unlimited, all 6 of my books are already available to you.

www.amazon.com/author/jnmorgan

The great Shillster strikes again!

I don't want to have writing as a career. It's a shit job with dubious pay.

I'm studying to be a doctor and am barely finding time to write as it is.
It'll stay as a hobby and that's perfectly fine.

Been writing my first novel. It's Gothic Horror. Last week had a good six day stint of 8-page-a-day writing then flat-lined. Couple days later back on the wagon, writing 8 pages for three mornings in a row with a steady increase of output each day. Story ebbs and flows as I'm essentially writing a chronicling of a supernatural entity, looking into self-contained horror stories, each taking place in a different century.

The ONLY writing habit which works for me is this:

>wake up
>don't do anything EXCEPT write whatever comes to mind during the twilight period between being asleep and full wakefulness
>after a page of rambling about whatever comes to mind I start writing a scene or write anything which informs me about the story
>burn out by page 8
>write an extra sentence at least per day
>don't have any rest days.

Bad

Oh yeah, also, all my books are available on Kindle Unlimited, so you can read them for free there if you want. If you want to support an author in their budding writing career, you'd actually be sending me money by going on Kindle Unlimited, tracking down my books, and flipping through the pages. Open one, flip right through to the end, or even halfway through, or a quarter way, or whatever, and you'd be actively sending me moneys. Would make my fucking day if all 6 of my books were 'read' today, but I don't know how long it takes to flip through pages so no worries if it takes a while. Cheers, Veeky Forums!

constant notetaking for 6 years now

I'm pretty bad at it, lazy too. I don't write enough or good enough.
That being said: Sent in some poems and a short story to a couple of contests, will submit more poetry and another short story over the next 2 months

I don't have any hopes for winning, or, even if I did, for that to have a positive effect on my writing habits, but at least it's something to look forward to

>write in my native language
>start a facebook page
>post the most cliché stories around love with cliché words such as 'cliché' in them
>mix some french stuff in there
>take daily inspiration from tumblr
>post black and white selection of photos with marketable quotes every couple of hours to keep readers engaged
>1yr fast forward have published an indie book
>made 70k after tax in 5 months after publishing that piece of trash
>"invested" 90% of it in virtual skins on a computer game (cs:go) like a financial illiterate like me would do
>most retarded shit ever
>skins actually got 25% up which made me have 19kUSD in profit in 1month...
>tfw don't even know what is life anymore
>why am i even in college when at most i'll be making 10k€ a yr if i even get a job

>tfw family connections that could get you insta-published but you refuse to go that route

Can you explain your thought processes?
I'm interested.

I want to do something good on my own, prove myself to myself without relying on nepotism.

Nepotism won't improve your novel so just use the connection.

I suppose that's one way of thinking. Good luck.

Personally, I'd be torn - I could use the time, otherwise spent on trying to get published, to make the piece better.
But now I realize feedback from publishers is a vital part of that as well.

I'm not sure what I'd do in your place. Then again, I'm not really trying to publish, I'm writing for myself, so I suppose it's irrelevant.

No. This is my thing, I want to create something of value in of itself and know that I achieved it without running to mummy or daddy for help.

Oh fuck off.

I'm not short on time. I think it's about getting past the publishers; the "gate keepers" of literary culture, without needing someone to tell them to open the gate for me.

Post a sample from something you won't submit then, fucko

Yeah, I get you.

What do your parents do that they have the ability to get you published?

Clearly you have some business sense user, nothing holds you back from pairing it with your other/college skills

What's the problem?

Work in the publishing industry. Not to mention that books have been written both by and about a few of my family members; not a strong connection in itself but it adds up.

i have no genuine talent/skills nor has college given me any. idk what it's like in the US but here i've literally studied 1week before each exam and managed to get my degree with like 5% class attendance which has left me with a very frail knowledge on the topics i was supposed to dominate. i'll be doing one year of volunteering in mozambique to see if i make any spiritual gains and grasp basic human values. i'm on my /quest/ guys, wish me luck.

Take the opportunity.
There are hundreds of thousands of books published each year. It's best that you break free of the delusion that you'll be capable of writing something good sometime in the next decade. Failing through nepotism is no worse than failing through your own merit

Stop responding to him, mate.

I appreciate the good advice but I do have unbiased confirmation that my writing is good, and improving.

Posted a few things on youtube. Got a few thousand views for each video.
As a hobby, it's doing well.

I've been putting it off from work, school and reading all week. I wish I had more time in the day.

When I first started to write I would go in without worry, writing exactly what was on my mind when it appeared. I never planned out what I was going to say, and hardly ever stopped in my process to think if something would fit better. What I had was raw and unedited, and even going back through to try and edit it I realized that what I had was good the way that I had it, but what I had was not what I truly wanted to write. Do both. If you have even ten or fifteen minutes of free time, put something down. Keep a journal of fragmented ideas, lines of dialogue, etc. and then when you feel you have the time and you feel you're ready to really begin on it just piece together the fragments that you've been preparing for weeks or months.

Holy fuck. You are either tremedously lucky, or devishly witty. But I'm hooked. Ever thought of printing that exact story with a little exagerations and making moar money? Or starting a blog where you'll write something similar, got readers, start marketing and then print it? Totaly some internet losers would strongly relate to you, in a way of fulfilling their dreams.

I could go write a 100 page novella about a strong independent blacc woman who destroys the oppressive hwite man by being too fat to be removed from a protest site, have the word negro in the title and get tons of unbiased reviews about it being "good"

Post sample.

Obviously I don't write anything like that.

Published a novel some years ago, not many sales but one (1) good review. In the process of editing my YA-novel now. It's short and sweet, but I guess no kids read today, so maybe the efforts are wasted. It's fun to write, though. I try to write Pynchon or maybe Murakami for kids/young adults.

Oh, and by the way, about the anons who refuse to see writing as anything other than a money game: I can with 100 % certainty say that I didn't give a shit about money or sales. I already have an income, and would rather sell 5 books with good reviews from proffesional critics than a million, Shitty Shades of grey.

I don't see how that would work. The niche I'd find wouldn't be big enough to justify the work done, I guess. On the other hand, I am not particularly witty, I just know what people want. I have a small shop that sells over priced souvenirs as well in the center of my town. It's a small industrial wannabe scandinavian design space where I've got bs products that come from China which you'll see in sites like pinterest and etsy. My margins are ridiculous. I get most stuff for literally under 1$ and sell them for almost 10x more. My parents think I'm some sort of genius entrepeneur when in reality I'm just a loser with good taste and shallow enough to understand some useless stuff. My friends think I must be of high intelligence and I try to act nonchalantly about it but deep down I feel worthless as a human being since I know this is all superficial and I'm surrounded by people much more intellectual than me.

Intellect takes many forms, user. This is one facet of it. One of many.
There's nothing to feel worthless about.

p.sure pastebin has a setting that you can activate so that the text doesn't show up in searches.

I almost feel excluded for not being an office rat and getting to experience the common denominator that ties most of my friends together. They all work in their respective fields, earn average wages and lead average lifestyles yet most of them, except for one or two, are more knowledgeable people than me. not necessarily wiser, but they are just well read in basic fields like economics whereas i'm seen as the entrepreneur guy that somehow gets money effortlessly (which i do but not in a good way...) as they know my parents aren't rich etc.

btw, i keep my writing a secret since it makes things easier this way.

I'm going to steal you as a character for one of my stories.

I have a hard time doing somewhat spontaneous stuff because of aspergers. I have to set a (pretty loose, admittedly) schedule for something to be done and I have routines that are pretty hard for me to break. I don't know if a loose schedule makes sense. Something like me vacuuming the floor every Wednesday but not having a set time for it on each Wednesday. Same with cutting the grass. Every Saturday. If it rains I get anxious.

I just want to die sometimes.

...

Joke's on you, Joseph, the amount of things I have stolen from here already is insumountable.