Young Authors

> want to write the next literary masterpiece
> only just 21
> no "life" experience

What are your thoughts about age and it's relation to writing when it comes to experience yaddi yadda

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age has nothing to do with it, it's all about talent. "life experience" is a meme; you either have the mental gifts to understand people, society, characteristics and motives; and the literary gift to set it down in good prose, or you don't.

Joyce and Proust were bitchboys with little "life experience." It's not about how many countries you travel to, etc. but how thoughtful, introspective, and observant a person you are. Also, style has nothing to do with life experience, but everything to do with exposure to literature.

Stop trying to write the "next literary masterpiece"
If you feel like you have something to say, and if you think there is a reader (as in an audience) for what you have to say, then write

"Talent" is just applied experience.

By "literary masterpiece" I mean I just want it to be really good and I've been told that comes with age

Rimbaud had retired by 21 and become an arms merchant fyi. It's a young man's game.

The fact is you need to be at a certain age to write. You're probably too young to understand time. With age comes loss and regret, and decay. You simply can't know what it's like to have your life reduced to the bare facts of a mortal existence until you see how little in fact your life matters in the grand scheme of things. That idea is too abstract for a young person. It takes age to give it a mortal edge. It's true Joyce wrote The Dead at 25. But by that point he was poor and life had become a serious and very limited affair. You do need experience to write. But that experience only comes with getting old and losing your youth, your hope, and your sense of self importance.

what about literally most other writers

some people get more experience/information from less data, though. talent is a collection of ways of thinking that happen to be better than others for certain endeavours

Practice with some introspective pieces based on what little experience you have, or write some genre fiction for a bit - no one says you have to send any of this to publishers, just practice the craft. If you want critiques find a writers group in your area to share your work with. As you age, you will get better, but only if you've been practising your prose.

Edouard Louis was mere 22 when he wrote the End of Eddy 2 years ago. Be ruthless with yourself

Just get good.

Take the time to seriously consider why you haven't gone on an adventure. Ride the rails, hitchhike across the country, sign on for some sort of perilous job. Life experience isn't hard to get, you just have to choose not to sit inside.

Life experience will obviously aid someone who is a good writer, but if a bad writer who has an inherently low IQ gets a fuckton of life experience they'd probably be better off sticking to non-fiction things like journalism, simply portraying what's been experienced with nothing added. For a fiction writer, experience is invaluable. Check out Tim Knox's interview with Hugh Howey, very insightful, and he's a hugely successful self-published author. Tim Knox is also up there, and Derek Murphy is likewise making thousands of dollars a month from self-publishing with primarily Amazon.

For now, stick to what you know. I'm from, /k/, I love firearms, I became a gun owner as soon as I was old enough to do so and I spent YEARS gaining as much experience as I could with them as well as researching them online for the ones I couldn't get my grubby hands on. I also have spent a lot of time researching wilderness survival. I've put them together to make my 'Living amongst the Dead' series which is currently 4 nitty gritty zombie survival (should be 5 within 2 weeks) and thus far it's my main 'bread-winner' as it were. Still not making much, but I'm steadily learning. I also wrote a novelette called 'Firearm Valhalla' (seriously I have a fucking erection for that title) and it's my most successful non-LatD book. It's primarily gun porn with some character development and a story tossed in. Planning to make a sequel to it soon.

I've not left my home nation of Canada, haven't managed to join the Military even though I tried twice, but in spite of my present somewhat lacking financial situation I actively seek out experiences. I've driven nearly coast-to-coast here on the 2nd largest nation on the planet, I've gotten so drunk and stoned that I nearly died, twice I nearly died as a kid, attempted suicide a couple times (who hasn't when they were a typical angsty teen), fell in love and had my heart ripped out through my asshole, fucked several chicks after that, even been hit on by a few guys but never tried that side of the fence before, I've grown and harvested some crops, I've helped cut down trees for firewood, I've been a pretty heavy stoner, presently basically an alcoholic (and admittedly loving it), I actively learn about history which is a huge passion for me (going to write historical fiction one of these days, huge emphasis on the history), and perhaps someday I'll even learn how not to write run-on sentences like this one!

You're only 21? Well I'm right around half a decade older than you. Unless you do something fucking foolish and get yourself killed whether by accident or intentionally, you'll be as old as I am someday. Try to get more experience than I have, and try to write more books than I have at this point. So far I'm working on #8. Leave the 'literary masterpiece' alone for now and just write. You have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to walk before you can run. I don't think it'll be much longer before I'm be running

this

wow

wheres your blog dude?!


so interesting

too long.

Nemo me impune lacessit.

Link your story faggot, I want to read it.

If that's not sarcasm, it should be, my life is pretty boring at the moment.

I've actually had that problem once, with a chick I dated when I was a teenager. She was a pretty wee little thing, and going too hard would actually hurt her, I assume hitting her cervix or whatever. Honestly, I'm not all THAT big, but yeah she'd seize up and start freaking out if I got in the heat of the moment and went 'all out'. Felt pretty bad to be honest. She was even one who liked it rough, introduced me to 'rape fetish'. Hot stuff...

What story? You mean my books? They're not autobiographical but here's the link on where to find them.

www.amazon.com/author/jnmorgan

I was actually homeless until not long ago, that was pretty interesting, met some sketchy characters as well as some amazing and fascinating ones. Here's a link to a free book if you'd rather not pay for anything, been told it's well written, but it's a novella that was finished within 5 days during a pretty stressful time so I wasn't too surprised when I was told by a reader that there were a couple grammatical errors.

lulu.com/shop/j-n-morgan/another-one-please-to-dull-the-pain/ebook/product-23229284.html

Cheers, hope you like 'em. Maybe I'll try writing a semi-autobiographical novel someday like Bukowski's one that became the movie Barfly, but since I'm not even 30 yet I think it's cringy as fuck for me to even consider making one now. Maybe if I were Alexander the Great who did a fuckton of awesome stuff in his 20s, but I think the most interesting events in my life have yet to happen. At least, if I have any say in the matter, I'm going to make sure my life only gets more and more interesting. A bit slow at the moment but once my writing career kicks off I'll be seeing what the world has to offer.

>"life experience" is a meme
Some of the greatest novels have been written based on life experiences. The Sun Also Rises, etc. And with that example, Hemingway had already been to war, written for newspapers extensively, and travelled all over.

>21
>still a frogposter
There is no hope for you. Try writing coloring books, they're more your speed.

The thing is, I always see this factor neglected in threads like these, is that even if all those great classic authors mostly published in later life, that doesn't mean they weren't writing in their early adulthood. In fact, it was BECAUSE they were writing so much in their early adulthood that they were able to write such masterpieces later in life. SO, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're 21 or whatever, if you want to write, you should be writing. If you want to write a book at 21, write a book at 21 - NOW, it might not be any good, and it probably won't get published, but you'll be a better author because of it. And who knows, you write the book at 21, maybe it IS a masterpiece, maybe you're a genius - isn't a good thing you checked now, and didn't wait?

I think as Tom Woolfe or someone said, write in you 20s, publish in your 30s.

I also can't suggest self-publishing enough. I know it's a big ugly meme on Veeky Forums, but the fact of the matter is it's a FANTASTIC way to potentially get some readers. You need to do the marketing, but I've swapped emails with people in the US, Germany, and Australia who have not only read several of my books but LOVED them! They're a huge source of inspiration for me, in fact one of the reasons I want to get my next book finished so soon is so that they don't have to wait any longer. The fact I get $2.60 CAD or so per sale is a nice little addition but I love to hear their feedback and REALLY try to squeeze them for any source of negativity that could be found, but generally all they've got is praise. Complete strangers, found my books before I'd ever spoken with them, read them, and we only got in contact afterwards. It's an amazing feeling.

Took months for such things to happen though of course, and I'm still not making a WHOLE lot of money, but hey, who's going to say no to $35 a month, give or take? Anyways, to become better you must be critiqued so that you can more quickly learn. To become better you must write more, and don't self-publish them with money in mind. You wrote it, then what? Throw it in a bin? In a drawer? Delete it from your computer like some coward? NO! Put it out there! If nobody buys it, so what? If people do buy it, cool! If they leave good reviews, awesome! If they leave bad reviews, awesome! They might be constructive and could lead to a great improvement in your writing! If you want to be a full-time writer, don't think in terms of weeks or months, but in years, plural. "I'll just write and maybe I'll be discovered in 5 or 10 years." Write for YOU, about what interests YOU, and if nothing comes of it then so what, it was fun and if you truly like writing it will continue to be fun.

I am very tired, I don't even know if I'm making sense anymore...

The only reason this might be true is because older people have been in situations where thoughts, emotions, decision making arose that unless you were in that exact position you wouldn't be able to fathom or rationalize.
Same reason why people want more nigs, women, gays, or whatever "minority" to write their books because it should give us view points and experiences that haven't been discussed by "white male" writers because they will most likely not find themselves in certain situations that provoke these truly unique thoughts which they can then translate into writing.

Extremely few young people have what it takes. When I say extremely few, I mean fewer than you imagine. You're not one of them.

You can write a book, but you're not writing a literary masterpiece.

Kids like these have no clue what they're talking about at all. They might want to print out their inanity and read it 10 or 20 years from now just to cringe at themselves.

Yes, and Rimbaud is one of the extremely few, an exceptional talent. One in a billion. You're not Rimbaud nor is anyone else in this thread.

Rimbaud isnt even good

>>>r/books

You're a little too interested in telling people what they can and cant do lol.

It all comes down to practice and how well you do it.

What's r/books? Request books?

It's never too early to start learning.

>It all comes down to practice and how well you do it.
You can't train perspective. It is grown. You can't grow vision, you have it or you don't. Inspiration, therefore, is a gift.

If that's all your goal is, the only think you need to do is practice your writing. In time you will achieve experience naturally, and then by the time you feel you meet the threshhold of experience necessary to compose a well thought-out story you will then also have the skill necessary to execute it. Stop living as if you'll die tomorrow; it's as counter-productive as it is insightful because you just take the instruction the wrong way and force yourself to do things you aren't ready yet. And as anyone should know, force-feeding isn't how you deliver someone to a world of refined taste. That is to say in forcing yourself to write a magnum opus before it is your time may actually contradict your intention where, as you write drivel after drivel after drivel you may convince yourself you can't come up with a story or even be a writer altogether, and hence your ability will be stifled into stagnation such that it is stunted come the time that you actually have an idea to write about, but are now vacant of the ability.

I hope you take something from this idea.

If you want to write a masterpiece, you have to be a literary genius

Rimbaud was that and reached his peak very early in his life, same can be said about a lot of other poets/writers

If you're doubting yourself you probably don't have what it takes

I just say keep writing and writing. Practice makes perfect. Once you're done with a novel or some c hapters go read similar work in the genre you're writing to be able to improve.

It's called introspection and study. Live the examined life.

Thanks faggot. Also who cares if you write your autobiography when you're 30, you can always write another one later. Plus you might get hit by a truck, but hopefully not you sound pretty cool.

Right on, thanks user. I'm busy with a few projects at the moment but I'll give more thought to writing an autobiography about all the fucked up shit I've seen. Hitch hiked several hundred kilometers by the way with a backpack full of stuff and several plastic grocery bags of things. Don't know the weight, but it wasn't light, and I must have walked... I don't know... over 10km with all that. By the end of it my boots had a crack in the soles and ultimately I was walking funny for days. Had a hard time going up and down stairs, but didn't want to wuss out and just take the elevator. If I didn't have so much weight my legs wouldn't have gotten nearly as messed up, but my back was alright, that's the main thing. All healed up and can walk up and down hills like a champ, still go on several-kilometer walks on occasion though I avoid doing so on sunny days. Cloudy is best.

Cheers, hope you enjoy the books! Got over 2600 words written so far today for my 8th one, 5th in the 'Living amongst the Dead' series, I think it's coming along well so far. Not sure if it'll be as good as the 4th; 'Living amongst the Dead: Struggles New and Old', but in its own way it's a very interesting change from the rest of the books.