I want to become a great writer

[ScribbleScribe]

Hello, I'm 22, I'm a college student and for years I've admired the old classical authors who had been trained classically. They are my idols.

I've only met 2 people online who I would say wrote beautifully. Their words were like music to my ears and I aspire to be like them. Too bad I didn't ask them how they got to be so good at expressing themselves. That bugs me that I didn't do that.

For now I am still reading classical novels, realizing that I need to expand the scope of my prose in order to develop insight and depth into my writing.

In your opinion, how do I develop my prose? How do I improve my writing ability? Advice anyone?

[Alexander III]

The best way Is to read, and read and read. But the good stuff, and many different areas. After that it's just up to natural talent and practice. Oh and I suppose leading an interesting life helps, as writing from personal experience works very well.

[LuggageFan]

Reading is important, but writing a lot is also important. Keep a diary, so you can go back to it later, and read it with the benefit of hindsight, so as to find ways to improve.

I think some of the best language training I ever received was in learning foreign languages, as you learn how languages are structured, you learn about grammar, etc.

[XQZ]

The wise has something to say, the fool has to say something


Do you have something to say?

[PeterL]

I agree with all of the other posters. You might start thinking about what you want to write about, then look for great writers in that field, and read those writers.

In addition to admiring and reading the authors that you consider the greats,you should also look at writing in general,and learn how to write in a different style when necessary. There are many good books about writing, but you will have to dig. You might want to read [i]Styles and Structures[i] by Charles Kay Smith and Umberto Eco's books on interpreting literature. http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=umberto eco&tag=asfatheassociati&index=books&link_code=qs

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The best way Is to read, and read and read. But the good stuff, and many different areas.

Along with the reading, the best way is to write, write, and write (this may be even more important).

I also think people just have a natural drive and desire to write. I have a friend who has all these stories in his head he just has to get out. It's impossible for him not to write. I don't have that, but would still love to be a published author some day, but that I don't have that drive is a great hindrance. Of course, "The wise has something to say, the fool has to say something," rings true, as some of his writing isn't all the wonderful. Maybe I'm just saving my talents :smilielol5:.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about originality. Every time I think of a story, I think to myself well, that's been done before, but, really, what hasn't? I think of the writing is good and engaging, it will pull you through.

[TacoButt]

I don't know how you can be a great writer but I just wanted to encourage you to become one. The world needs great writers. We have too many average or poor writers, I think.

[Sancho]

I don't know what makes a great writer either, but I do know that TacoButt has the funniest avatar I've ever seen.

[grechzoo]

I'm 24 and I aspire to be writer in the future. I'm not rushing, neither am I comparing myself to any of my idols. I have countless ideas for stories (some bad, a few good), but I know I don't have the experience/maturity/knowledge to portray these as artistically as one day I hope to be able to.

So until then, I simply write about 800 - 1000 words a day. Quick and flowing, without going back and editing. Each day I write from a different viewpoint in a different genre/perspective/subject. It's a great exercise and while the result may not yield anything to tangible or instantly gratifying, the fact is you will improve.

Maybe not over a month, but a year or even five years down the line, there's no doubt your writing should be unrecognizable from you first attempts. (Hopefully in a good way of course :p)

[mortalterror]

Read and write a lot, but then edit. You are not alone. There are people like grechzoo who write 1,000 words a day and you'll have to write 2,000, or 4,000. You'll have to want it more and put more of yourself into your work, which means discipline. Every day, once you've written your quota, you must try to surpass yourself. And you must go back over what you've written previously and try to find the weakness in your writing to root it out. Seek out mentors and like minded peers. Nobody does it alone.

[Jozanny]

Although my disability may have placed a higher price tag on my failure, Scribble, focus on your economic security first, please. My instructors tried to warn me when I was your age, and I thought everything would be fine, my poverty if it occured would be a bemusement for a memoir. I was also once romantic and flighty. Bylines don't mean anything unless there is a contract or contest winnings attached. No one reads literary journals, whether in blog form or print. I have been published in hundreds, and they never paid my rent. Don't dream. Learn how to query early, put or don't put faith in workshops, but remember they are a tool, and if you don't want to grow up, apply for an MFA, teach writing, and maybe you'll get lucky, but focus on your money and well being first.

[stlukesguild]

Although my disability may have placed a higher price tag on my failure, Scribble, focus on your economic security first, please. My instructors tried to warn me when I was your age, and I thought everything would be fine, my poverty if it occured would be a bemusement for a memoir. I was also once romantic and flighty. Bylines don't mean anything unless there is a contract or contest winnings attached. No one reads literary journals, whether in blog form or print. I have been published in hundreds, and they never paid my rent. Don't dream. Learn how to query early, put or don't put faith in workshops, but remember they are a tool, and if you don't want to grow up, apply for an MFA, teach writing, and maybe you'll get lucky, but focus on your money and well being first.

Of course I might ask, JoZ... if you had it to do all over... knowing what you know now... would you listen to such advice?:skep:

[Seasider]

I wanted to be a great writer from the time I learned to read and write. Eventually I went to university and spent 3 years reading as many great writers as I could. And I learned how to look at them critically and so forth...and put them in lists, which was great practice for The Literature Forum.

Then after 3 years study and many more years reading, I found I had turned into a critic and not a writer and when I realised I could not compete with the greats, and that was the only competition I was interested in, I gave up creative writing and pursued academic comment and criticism.

So if I have any advice for you it is this...focus on becoming first a writer. Use all the other advice about wide reading and writing practice that has been suggested and you will develop into a good writer and then perhaps a great writer. You are young and have the time. Many great writers were not initially recognised as such and had years of rejection before their success.

And apart from that, there is a life to be had and a living to be made from being a writer, if not in the first rank. How much reading pleasure would have been denied us if we confined our reading only to the greats?

[Jozanny]

Of course I might ask, JoZ... if you had it to do all over... knowing what you know now... would you listen to such advice?:skep:

Yes. I am not saying I would not have attempted to be a writer, but I did not focus hard enough on the economics and my career security. I drifted from one job to another, made a half-assed attempt to become a terminal instructor like Petrarch--although I did teach children at your level--but you can imagine what might have happened to me in the Philadelphia school system, and it was not sustainable. Entered social services a little late, and took a huge salary drop by the time AccessLife hired me to work with the late Christopher Reeve and his equally deceased wife. AccessLife dissolved, and disability politics being what they are, I could not elbow my way in on New Mobility, though I did feature work for them.

I have talent, most aspiring writers do, but for every Lionel Shriver or Franzen, or recognized journalists like David Brooks, there are 100 flat foots like me. I barely have time for my poetry anymore, which is what I love best, because I am chasing after any editor I can suck up to, and playing kiss and tell with ossified old men like Ebert and Kristof.

If I was young this might be fun; it's not. I am dearly trying to avoid another drop down the ladder at an age where I should have a husband, a home, and don't. This is because I did not develop a set of skills to fall back on, and this is what I'm advocating luke. It is no accident that many doctors and lawyers become prolific authors at some point during or after their careers.

I might have avoided all this with just a little more discipline, so I hope some of the kids here heed me.

[Jassy Melson]

Don't worry about becoming a great writer; put it out of your mind. Just become a writer. Greatness is something beyond the writer's reach (I mean opinion about greatness from others). Did Dostoesvky ever consider himself a great writer? No, he didn't. But the world now knows he was a great writer.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Read and write plentifully

[cyberbob]

I agree that aiming to be great is naive.

Sure everyone should aim to be as good as they possibly can, but just being a writer should be your foremost goal.

If you're looking past the next step toward the finish line, you're just a dreamer.

Aim to improve never-endingly and if people ever consider you great, then great. But it's something that's out of your control.

Just love the craft and consider yourself lucky if you make a living, or even get paid off of it.

[B. Laumness]

Learn perfectly your language before trying to play with it.

Read and nourish your imagination.

Read great authors and form your aesthetic judgment.

Read classics, learn the history of literature, and you will know what is new and what is a cliché.

Read what (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56276) masters wrote about their art.

Don’t read anything, be selective, and learn to read well.

Live, have experiences, otherwise you will be unproductive.

Look at the world, develop your thoughts, build and enrich your interior world.

Write a lot at the beginning, make pastiches, experiment, cross out, burn or delete.

If you want to know what the others think about your writings, don’t look for praises, but for constructive criticism.

If you know your strength and your goals, listen to Horace or Leopardi: don’t show your writings until they are mature.

Don’t try to juxtapose beautiful sentences as if you were stringing pearls: beauty would not be such without its small imperfections; so, learn to prepare your effects.

Many an adjective is useless: prefer substance to a superfluous embellishment.

A bad punctuation doesn’t only break the music; it’s also an error of reasoning.

Although the best prose is full of rhetoric, the reader barely notices it, for the best artists don’t show their tricks and make believe that the things are easy.

Don’t copy the style of anybody else, for the style is the expression of yourself and of your relation with the world and the language.

Don’t be nebulous and imprecise; aim at clarity.

Don’t write for money, but for the sake of Art.

Put your faith in Art and in nothing else.

Remember, Sistine Chapel was not made in one day.

[cyberbob]

^ I disagree with the advice of "don't read anything" and "read classics, great authors" etc.

I think getting a taste of everything is important. Just reading the greats will lead to a sort of worship and make one think great writing is super-human.

It's not like reading "junk literature" will make you a bad writer. Limiting yourself in ANY way is never good.

Do you think great actors only ever saw great movies? Or great musicians only listened to great music? Or great painters only saw beautiful things?

If the mind was so stupid to not discern good from bad and it picked up any influences it encountered then there'd be no artistic progress.

[B. Laumness]

It's a matter of time: I think it's better not to lose time with junk literature, bad music, or bad movies.

And no, the knowledge of the great artists doesn't make them super-human, on the contrary.

[cyberbob]

Reading great books is necessary, but so is variety, even if only to put those greats into context.

If you're just an avid reader then it makes sense to skip "junk" but if you're a writer it'd be a huge mistake to limit yourself. You can learn from every person and some things you won't learn from so-called masters.

Either way it's hard to define what's great and what's junk. Some have large fanbases and some have the support of intellectuals and some have both.

I'd rather read and learn for myself what I like than go by the opinion of other people, who often like things just because others deem them brilliant. (which Ayn Rand satirized in The Fountainhead)

[arrytus]

To one who has since learned he is not so creative as he once imagined [irony], I think a better perspective is concerned with what will satisfy you. If you do not attain your goal, admirable though it may be, and despite the years of effort and desire you put in only to learn aleatory and innate skill are greater factors than perhaps we were raised to believe, will you yet be satisfied with the pieces you did turn out? the adumbrate novels, the less than perfect poetry, the desultory stories? Perhaps the only one percent of works which are both complete and enjoyable when being reread?

What will you consider a success? What will satisfy you? I doubt these questions can be answered more than with a feigned prescience. But will you be satisfied looking back in a decade, with a handful of works that perhaps only a few hundred people have read, and only a dozen people admire, a cortege perhaps of which you yourself are not even included, and will you find the determination of striving, the simple attempt, to learn and express, will that be worthwhile when juxtaposed to the necessarily myriad other ways you may have lived? Can you believe, can you live with the fact that the closest you may ever get to being a great writer is simply trying? And will you look upon those failed works as insignificant because they influenced so few, if any, or will they be meaningful to you even if no one else....

[Seasider]

Don't rule out junk fiction entirely.
Raymond Chandler, whom most critics rate among the great writers of the 20th Century had a classical education but it did not lead immediately to a career as a writer...he worked for a company that produced graphic novels often dealing with crime and general lawlessness. Eventually he used his experience of "junk" books to write fast moving and suspenseful thrillers but with the benefit of a good prose style and an interest in developing character. Philip Marlowe is a Private Eye but one with a difference.

[Sulla]

Drink heroically for a month straight. Lose your friends, your enemies, and all your world possessions. Mainly, lose your family and your job. These things will only get in the way.

Have sex with every woman you can. Maybe a few men. Love a few of them intensely.

Do something that people will say is "right". Then shortly after that do something that they say is "wrong". Something so wrong they forget the right and you have to spend the rest of your life trying to put all the pieces back together, one item at a time.

Write all the time. Write like your life. With no real purpose or grand direction. Just write because you have to. Because everything else is a waste of time. Write to put the pieces back together. To restore all that was lost and never lost.

[TacoButt]

Drink heroically for a month straight. Lose your friends, your enemies, and all your world possessions. Mainly, lose your family and your job. These things will only get in the way.

Have sex with every woman you can. Maybe a few men. Love a few of them intensely.

Do something that people will say is "right". Then shortly after that do something that they say is "wrong". Something so wrong they forget the right and you have to spend the rest of your life trying to put all the pieces back together, one item at a time.

Write all the time. Write like your life. With no real purpose or grand direction. Just write because you have to. Because everything else is a waste of time. Write to put the pieces back together. To restore all that was lost and never lost.

That sounds a lot like a friend of mine. He became a lonely, homeless alcoholic with herpes and sentenced to 120 hours of community service. No novels yet...

[Seasider]

So many writers convinced that alcohol was the great unlocker of genius. Oh dear...and what a waste. Don't go down that route. I am not suggesting that you sign the pledge...but as Socrates, I think, said " Moderation in Everything""

[Sulla]

That sounds a lot like a friend of mine. He became a lonely, homeless alcoholic with herpes and sentenced to 120 hours of community service. No novels yet...

Well, you don't get herpes by being alone all the time. Not unless you had a bad battle with a toilet seat and lost.

I wasn't suggesting anyone to become an actual alcoholic (though drinking for a month straight isn't really an alcoholic...it might be the road you take though).

Fitzgerald is a good example of what alcohol can do for your writing career. That is nothing.

I was merely pointing out the writing lifestyle cliches. There is no real path. Other than writing a lot, there's no single thing you can do that will promise you a great writer label.

There's no reading list. No writing exercise that will do it. There's no MFA program that will promise you Tolstoy'hood.

All I can say is that you need to read, write, and remain in that mind of writer&reader at all or most times.

[mortalterror]

That sounds a lot like a friend of mine. He became a lonely, homeless alcoholic with herpes and sentenced to 120 hours of community service. No novels yet...

Sounds like a novel to me.

[Drkshadow03]

Hello, I'm 22, I'm a college student and for years I've admired the old classical authors who had been trained classically. They are my idols.

I've only met 2 people online who I would say wrote beautifully. Their words were like music to my ears and I aspire to be like them. Too bad I didn't ask them how they got to be so good at expressing themselves. That bugs me that I didn't do that.

For now I am still reading classical novels, realizing that I need to expand the scope of my prose in order to develop insight and depth into my writing.

In your opinion, how do I develop my prose? How do I improve my writing ability? Advice anyone?

1) Read and write. But read and write with an eye towards writing, not just reading it. For example, when you read something, stop and pay attention only to the first paragraph. Really dissect it. Study the sentence structure, the word choices, what is revealed about character, setting, what literary techniques are employed, and the effects of just the first paragraph.

2) Writing books can be helpful in that they can focus you on the nuts-and-bolts of writing.

3) Critique groups that are good can really help improve your writing, if they are insightful and honest members who are willing to be honest and constructive, and you're genuinely willing to listen to the feedback.

4) Writing workshops can be great too, especially if you have an opportunity to work with real published authors and professional editors. (it's a variant of point # 3). This is best saved after you moved from complete newbie, but still can't quite crack any markets. I had the opportunity to do this and vastly improved my writing, although I'm still not quite there yet. A good workshop is like a boot camp for writers.

5) Given the theme of your post, I think it's worth mentioning one piece of advice I received at said workshop from a professional writer (given to the entire group, not specifically about my work): "Don't have Tolstoy envy." Don't expect to be able to write like the greats. Even if you can't you can still possibly write fiction that is worthwhile. But be honest to your own voice and your own vision, and don't give up just because you're not as talented as Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

[TacoButt]

Well, you don't get herpes by being alone all the time. Not unless you had a bad battle with a toilet seat and lost.


I understand what you were saying, Sulla. I was having a bit of fun with it only.

When I was 22, I drank McNaughtons and smoked Lucky Strikes because I was trying to be an artist. I forgot the part about actually PRODUCING something though...

Perhaps whiskey, sex and drugs helped Joyce and Poe, et al. I tend to think the may have been untreated borderline types. However, I wonder if they had some nice meds if they WOULD have produced what they did?

God forbid someone should have given lithium bicarbonate to Felix Mendelsohn....:skep:

[Sulla]

I understand what you were saying, Sulla. I was having a bit of fun with it only.

When I was 22, I drank McNaughtons and smoked Lucky Strikes because I was trying to be an artist. I forgot the part about actually PRODUCING something though...

Perhaps whiskey, sex and drugs helped Joyce and Poe, et al. I tend to think the may have been untreated borderline types. However, I wonder if they had some nice meds if they WOULD have produced what they did?

God forbid someone should have given lithium bicarbonate to Felix Mendelsohn....:skep:

It all depends on their specific mental condition. I think alcohol may have ruined more work than it created. But it's hard to say. I think some artists would've benefited from meds. They may have been better who knows?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Also, to add to the "don't read junk literature" comment. There could be something to be learned in what not to do.

[Jozanny]

1) 4) Writing workshops can be great too, especially if you have an opportunity to work with real published authors and professional editors. (it's a variant of point # 3). This is best saved after you moved from complete newbie, but still can't quite crack any markets. I had the opportunity to do this and vastly improved my writing, although I'm still not quite there yet. A good workshop is like a boot camp for writers.

And a bad one is like a trip to the dentist; for me, personally, my editors sharpened my work. Conferences and workshops have group dynamics that pressure toward conformity, which is why suburban housewives like them and read moderators the riot act about someone like me. They are not all bad, and Scribble at this point might benefit from one at his school--but there are writers of a sizeable minority who caution about the workshop/conference dynamic.

Good to read your posts, Drk, btw. It's been awhile.

[mal4mac]

For now I am still reading classical novels, realizing that I need to expand the scope of my prose in order to develop insight and depth into my writing.


Learn how to use words carefully. Do you mean "classical novels" or "classic novels"?

[arrytus]

To one who has since learned he is not so creative as he once imagined [irony], I think a better perspective is concerned with what will satisfy you. If you do not attain your goal, admirable though it may be, and despite the years of effort and desire you put in only to learn aleatory and innate skill are greater factors than perhaps we were raised to believe, will you yet be satisfied with the pieces you did turn out? the adumbrate novels, the less than perfect poetry, the desultory stories? Perhaps the only one percent of works which are both complete and enjoyable when being reread?

What will you consider a success? What will satisfy you? I doubt these questions can be answered more than with a feigned prescience. But will you be satisfied looking back in a decade, with a handful of works that perhaps only a few hundred people have read, and only a dozen people admire, a cortege perhaps of which you yourself are not even included, and will you find the determination of striving, the simple attempt, to learn and express, will that be worthwhile when juxtaposed to the necessarily myriad other ways you may have lived? Can you believe, can you live with the fact that the closest you may ever get to being a great writer is simply trying? And will you look upon those failed works as insignificant because they influenced so few, if any, or will they be meaningful to you even if no one else....

on this note, read "Last Words of a Sensitive Second-Rate Poet" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

[Seasider]

So much good advice and encouragement. I hope you are a bit nearer your goal by now.
But I wanted to say that you, nor any other aspirant, may award yourself the title of Great Writer. It may be awarded first by the contemporary community of scholars, practitioners, critics and readers that St Lukes's Guild has written of and thenceforth by posterity. Some writers are fortunate enough to be awarded the title in their own lives and others not until after their death.

[Mr.lucifer]

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to perfect your writing skills.

[stlukesguild]

I think the very question or expression of the desire to "become a great writer" seems... misguided(?)

Or perhaps it just a way of thinking when one is younger.

I'm a working artist. I make art because it is something I am driven to do. I have always loved drawing. I love color. I like the way a line can weave through an image or the way paint looks on the surface. I'm not certain that wanting to be a great writer or loving great writing and literature is what makes a writer. A writer, it would seem to me, already has a passion for words. He or she is already playing with words, inventing characters, telling stories... writing... writing... writing.

I have the goal of being the best artist I can be and as such I have studied the various elements of drawing, composition, color theory, etc... but I also recognize that no one can teach you how to become a great artist or a great writer... in spite of what the university creative writing courses might suggest.

Certainly... read what others have written. Read it carefully and with an eye to analyzing what they have done well. Listen to the critical suggests of others with experience... but recognize that ultimately it all lies with you and if you are going to be a writer of any merit you must already have a passion for writing and words that goes beyond merely admiring what others have achieved... and that goes beyond the obvious material success or failure. You must be driven to write no matter what others think. Carefully read what arrytus has written:

To one who has since learned he is not so creative as he once imagined [irony], I think a better perspective is concerned with what will satisfy you. If you do not attain your goal, admirable though it may be, and despite the years of effort and desire you put in only to learn aleatory and innate skill are greater factors than perhaps we were raised to believe, will you yet be satisfied with the pieces you did turn out? the adumbrate novels, the less than perfect poetry, the desultory stories? Perhaps the only one percent of works which are both complete and enjoyable when being reread?

What will you consider a success? What will satisfy you? I doubt these questions can be answered more than with a feigned prescience. But will you be satisfied looking back in a decade, with a handful of works that perhaps only a few hundred people have read, and only a dozen people admire, a cortege perhaps of which you yourself are not even included, and will you find the determination of striving, the simple attempt, to learn and express, will that be worthwhile when juxtaposed to the necessarily myriad other ways you may have lived? Can you believe, can you live with the fact that the closest you may ever get to being a great writer is simply trying? And will you look upon those failed works as insignificant because they influenced so few, if any, or will they be meaningful to you even if no one else....

Beyond this, certainly listen to JoZ. She is telling you the hard-learned truth. Financial success in the arts is rare and owes as much to luck as it does to ability. It is incredibly difficult to create when you are struggling simply to make ends meet. I did the bohemian starving artists schtick in New York for a couple of years and created almost nothing. Today I have a full time job but also find the time to create a solid body of work. Its all about priorities and passion. I need to make art more than I need to watch TV... so I almost never watch TV. I force myself to work on art a minimum number of hours each week with few exceptions (illness, holidays, etc...)

Good luck!:wave:

[Mr.lucifer]

I thought Joz was a man up until now. This is the second time I has mistaken someone's gender on here.

[Jozanny]

Scribbles: I am serious when I urge developing other professional career skills; doing so doesn't mean you cannot teach yourself writing as a craft. It merely secures you. Franzen was once poor, so was the poet Allen Tate, but they lucked out. Some aren't so lucky, and very few writers actually develop more than localized recognition. I achieved that once or twice in the tribe, so to speak, but let's try an exercise.

Carol Luce
George Harrar
Gretchen Laskas
Nicole Kelby
Robert Thomas
Al Maginnes

Recognize any of these names? All professionally established creative writers more successfully marketed than I. Some of them I know. Ever heard of them?

I am not trying to deter you, just sober you up. Even good marketing may not lead to break out recognition. You will write if it is what you need to do, but it is as much blood sweat and tears as it is a calling, and my economic vulnerability became serious, not charming or quaint. I caught a break once, but that may not happen again.

[stlukesguild]

There's a rather informative book by John Maxwell Hamilton entitled, Casanova was a Book Lover which explores various facets of writing, publication, etc... One chapter gives a rather sobering break down of the average income of writers and even the average return on a novel. One chart shows how the average essay accepted and published by major magazines actually pay less in the 1990s that they did in 1960 in many instances.

In the following chapter, the author explores just how writers have survived (their day jobs)... including a breakdown pie chart: academia 31%, journalism 14%, law 3.6 %. The array of jobs held by major writers is fascinating in itself:

Chaucer- diplomat
Melville- sailor
Hawthorne- customs official
Dickens- factory worker
T.S. Eliot- bank officer
Horatio Alger, John Donne, Robert Herrick- clergymen
Matthew Arnold- school inspector
Jule Verne- stockbroker
Thomas Hardy- architect
John Keats- apothecary
Jack London and Arthur Miller- truck drivers
Christopher Marlowe- spy
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson- ad men
Franz Kafka and Wallace Stevens- insurance
Arthur Conan Doyle, William Carlos Williams, Anton Checkov- doctors

T.S. Eliot disliked his job... but disliked poverty more, stating "I cannot accept one bedroom as being liberty compared to my present situation."

Most authors would find themselves as living well below the poverty line if they depended upon income from writing alone.

[arrytus]

Chaucer- diplomat
Melville- sailor
Hawthorne- customs official
Dickens- factory worker
T.S. Eliot- bank officer
Horatio Alger, John Donne, Robert Herrick- clergymen
Matthew Arnold- school inspector
Jule Verne- stockbroker
Thomas Hardy- architect
John Keats- apothecary
Jack London and Arthur Miller- truck drivers
Christopher Marlowe- spy
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson- ad men
Franz Kafka and Wallace Stevens- insurance
Arthur Conan Doyle, William Carlos Williams, Anton Checkov- doctors



Ah, but what about the librarians! although these days you need a BA degree and Masters even for that, sadly...

[OrphanPip]

Georges Bataille was a librarian, which makes me wonder what kind of twisted things being a librarian might do to your mind.

Edit: There's also that age old profession of many great writers like Lowell, Stein, Tennyson, and Byron: being born into money.

[arrytus]

Edit: There's also that age old profession of many great writers like Lowell, Stein, Tennyson, and Byron: being born into money.

be a prince like tolstoy

or a gambler like dostoevsky and balzac

or a stevedore like eric hoffer

[Drkshadow03]

Ah, but what about the librarians! although these days you need a BA degree and Masters even for that, sadly...

That's what I am! And even with the damn degrees, there are no jobs!

[Jozanny]

Editors aren't biting either, but I don't know if I'm in a fallow period or it's the economy. My pace has been slowed by circumstances, and I am trying to return to my pre-recession levels, but no pitch I have made since 2008 has earned a sale, nor manuscript accepted for publication. I would not be so frank, normally, but even established writers hit dry runs. I thought my blog would be too dark for most, but I am gaining on the penny meter, and I am looking for disability based home employment part time. I have roughly a year, give or take.

Drk: One of my universities trained me in library stacking, but even with the ADA, wheelchair librarians are rare, I'd venture.

[arrytus]

time to start a writers colony! ...which inevitably dissolves into pettifogs and prose pieces of realism too similar for artistic comfort- and charges of 'socialism' with pejorative connotations by the purlieus populace- BUT has the perk of an extensive communal library.

[Jozanny]

time to start a writers colony! ...which inevitably dissolves into pettifogs and prose pieces of realism too similar for artistic comfort- and charges of 'socialism' with pejorative connotations by the purlieus populace- BUT has the perk of an extensive communal library.

I have toyed with the idea of applying for a residency and then pleading political asylum, upon which a Poets & Writers contributor would submit an article with the lede, "Why is anyone who knew Jozanny not surprised?"

I may be joking, but I have spent an enormous amount of energy trying to find a way off the grid without the economic means, not so strange, as what I hoped to achieve in Philadelphia has come to a close.

[AshRogue]

I never wrote anything significant..
I don't know if I will ever.

But I can tell you,
the desire to write emerges (at least in me) because there is no one immediately near to hear and understand you.

My loneliness makes me want to write.
My sufferings or triumphs...
so many things...
so many complaints...
so many thanks..

yet so alone.

yes I too want to write..

I think you will also write..
if u feel those things that you have no one nearby to express by sound.

Good luck brother.

[sophia.laig]

(I'm not a native english speaker, but i hope you'll understand what i mean.)



Before choosing (what should be done) which writing style you will follow (or will practice more), I recommend evaluating your passion before your capacity. Writing requires a lot of the one who does it, and without passion it would become a torturous path. If you don't breed, eat and live through writing, then don't write. Our society has no use for it.
Once you have chosen, read a lot. After reading thousands of books, think about whether there is in you force and talent for writing. I may seem to discourage you, but believe me, I'm just warning you about road hazards. If there is such a spirit in you, you can continue expressing your admiration [to the literature] reading. If there is, get ready to read a lot and write as well. The first 10.000 pages that you write are the worst pages that you will write. PRACTICE!
If you like biographies as much as I do, you may have noticed that it is necessary to live to write. Do not think the creative process is pure fiction. Writing is mimesis. Get to know people, go deep in what you know, talk a lot. Always look for several people to read and analyze your text. What you say does not matter. Matter What your words provoke in who reads you. I have a close friend who writes, and we talk by letters. It's a good exercise.
Well, that's it. Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Be brave. Talk.

Good Luck!

[Jozanny]

I never wrote anything significant..
I don't know if I will ever.

But I can tell you,
the desire to write emerges (at least in me) because there is no one immediately near to hear and understand you.

My loneliness makes me want to write.
My sufferings or triumphs...
so many things...
so many complaints...
so many thanks..

yet so alone.

yes I too want to write..

I think you will also write..
if u feel those things that you have no one nearby to express by sound.

Good luck brother.

Take all this and try to turn it into concrete material. Loneliness and triumphs are abstractions, but when Nathanael West wrote his novella Miss Lonelyhearts, how could anyone forget the letter writer without a nose? Think in graphic images, specific things. Learn how to observe and ask yourself what you don't know, and then research it. Think of situations and this will generate material, and when you think you've revised enough revise again, and keep dictionaries handy. I have at least six. A good editor will edit to make your work stronger, even the most experienced writer benefits from this, but refresh yourself on grammar and make sure you know how to correct your errors, and, you have to accept that you will be rejected most of the time, and send it out again. You can self publish but for that you have to learn about distribution and self-promotion, and digital technology makes it very easy, conversely, to get lost in the crowd.

Again, learn how to pitch. I did not get over my fear of query writing until later in my life, and should have listened to my instructors and started this as a student, but I found it easier to hide behind my manuscripts. This probably cost me some money. I don't always enjoy doing it, and sometimes do it badly, sometimes better, but do it I do. Most beginners fear acting on this, don't, and don't get upset if experienced critics and publishers tell you politely or otherwise that you suck. Take it for what it is worth and persist.

You also can't do everything, and that comes with experience.

[Themistocles18]

Once you've read a great deal of literary fiction you'll find that you have a good unconscious sense of what makes good writing. Unconscious. The point is to make it conscious. To this I say that simply reading won't do, unless you're a type of genius. Better is to try to isolate sentences, passages, chapters that have moved you- which you recognize as great without quite knowing why- and compare them. Faulkner is not Waugh. The why of that matters and I think that, generally, it's better not to crib this from existing categories (i.e, knowing that Faulkner wrote Stream of Consciousness and Waugh deplored it). You need to figure it out yourself.

[TheChilly]

Hello, I'm 22, I'm a college student and for years I've admired the old classical authors who had been trained classically. They are my idols.

I've only met 2 people online who I would say wrote beautifully. Their words were like music to my ears and I aspire to be like them. Too bad I didn't ask them how they got to be so good at expressing themselves. That bugs me that I didn't do that.

For now I am still reading classical novels, realizing that I need to expand the scope of my prose in order to develop insight and depth into my writing.

In your opinion, how do I develop my prose? How do I improve my writing ability? Advice anyone?

1. Read more classic works.
2. Now read some contemporary works.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 over and over.
4. Write, write, write, and write whatever comes out of your gut feeling. Don't worry about how people will perceive it. Just write.
5. Watch and study many different films, be it mainstream or independent, and be it the best or the worst.

Good luck!