Losing My Passion For Literature

**burntpunk** · 11-24-2009, 02:34 PM

The truth is that I no longer read. I was once a voracious reader and writer with mountains of ambition and imagination in order to progress. It appeared, when I was 14 years old, I was on the path to become a capable student of literature, and perhaps one day an author. Three years on, and I've reached a certain plateau in my writing. I used to write and read daily, sifting through books effortlessly. But now, I’ve lost my intellectual curiosity, my attention-span for reading and writing is rotting away, with my interests deviating towards sex, drugs & alcohol. I still plough the same time and effort into literature, but it appears that things no longer click for me.

With the opportunity to attend Oxford University a possibility, it’s terrible that I’m pissing around in my A Levels. True, I’m still on course to nail A*s, but I’m no longer the free-thinking mind that I used to be. The truth is that I can get away with slacking, I have both natural and attained ability in this subject, but I don’t just want to attend a top university, I want to attend a top university and be in the right frame of mind in order to appreciate the experience. Three years ago, haven already written two novels, I would have embraced the experience of having a published poet at my English Literature Teacher. Back then, I needed to voice my literary opinions, and my teachers couldn’t cope, now that I have one who can, I slump in my chair with apathy.

I talk and act like pseudo-intellectual; I’m still streets ahead of my peers, but every day, the streets become closer and closer. I have this terrible arrogance, which I don’t live up to. Back in my writing peak, I was embarrassed of the hobby, I penned two novels, and embraced the craft with my full-commitment, and not a soul knew. Nowadays, it is everybody’s business, in this time frame; I’ve become a social-being. And being a writer is now a tag applied to me, a tag which is secretly unfulfilled. The only fiction happening for me is that tag itself.

I don’t feel like I’ve learnt anything in a long time. The last novel I read was A Clockwork Orange in January. Although in the last 18 months, I've settled upon blogging, the making of me. Every day I write 5-6 pages of expression, whether it’s my thoughts, emotions, opinions, hopes, dreams ... there is a feeling that my entire life in that time period has been captured. And it’s wonderful, although it wasn’t the narrative ball rolling, it was a ball. This blogging led to some intellectual clarity. Selfish vain intellectual clarity. But intellectual clarity nevertheless. The long-term goal was to extract the core themes from my bloggings and rework it into a roman au clef novel. However, the expression continued with no end product. And recently, a terrible thing happened. My hardrive was wiped, no back-ups, all of my works gone. Hundreds of pages. Personally, I think it’s a blessing in disguise. A fresh start.

And it is at this point that I ask for your advice, boys and girls, if you have any advice on how I can reignite my passion for literature, I would be most grateful.

Starting at ground zero; what kind of books do you believe I should begin reading? Contemporary yet relevant literature? Or back to the stone cold classics?

**Paulclem** · 11-24-2009, 02:45 PM

You sound as though you need to do some livng for a while. You'll be fired up again when you get some inspiration. I don't think it's an uncomon experience you're having. Just do what you feel like for a bit.

A passion for life is often expressed in a passion for literature.

**escapologist** · 11-24-2009, 03:04 PM

First of all, that's a very well chosen avatar. Suits your post perfectly

.

Second, (and I'm really sorry if I sound pretentious) have you considered the possibility that you're taking life too seriously? Your level of intelligence can be a curse early in life. 14 is a very young age to start writing. First of all, no matter what we think as teenagers, we just don't have the right amount of life experience to peak as writers at that age. I'm not speaking from a huge distance, I'm only 22, but I'm sure things will change for you in the next few years. Maybe your mind got saturated with literature and intellectualism, so no wonder you crave sex, drugs & alcohol. It's completely normal! The thing is to find a balance between intellectual work and hedonism, and it is pretty hard, but it can definitely be done. The most obvious answer would be- go out every night, get pissed a lot and have lots of sex and you'll get tired of that eventually and turn back to reading and writing. The only problem is that you might find yourself throwing your education away in the process.

To avoid that, I guess you should go back to basics and ask yourself what it is that made you read so much in the first place. Why do you love literature? What were you looking for in it? Why do you read? Answer that, and maybe you'll see things more clearly.

**Eryk** · 11-24-2009, 03:19 PM

I think you've got to just let this happen. Look at excerpts on Amazon and poke around the library. You're in an enviable place right now if you ask questions about why we read literature at all. You'll be a better reader than you otherwise would have been, for thinking about the basic things, and the enthusiasm and "beginner's mind" of a fresh start. All this will happen, in its own way.

**LitNetIsGreat** · 11-24-2009, 04:03 PM

At such an age you are bound to be distracted by a whole host of other things, which is perfectly natural, but why wouldn't you want to go to Oxford if you have the opportunity? Unless you are plenty rich and can attend at a later stage, I would snatch at the chance. Though I suppose you might be bright but you can't teach life experience.

As for what to read, I'm sure you will get many different replies from many different people. Personally I would give yourself a good grounding in the classics, but I suppose you should follow your nose and your own path in more ways than one.

**Emil Miller** · 11-24-2009, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by escapologist

The most obvious answer would be- go out every night, get pissed a lot and have lots of sex

I can definitely recommend it.

**dafydd manton** · 11-24-2009, 05:13 PM

You're only doing A-levels, at your age, and you're worried about it?!? Stop taking life so seriously, you ain't going to get out of it alive, and, as someone else said, get a bit of living done. If you are reading because you think you ought to, it's a pretty rubbish motive. Relax, take life a bit easier and remember the old maxim - the first symptom of a nervous breakdown is starting to believe that what you do is important!!!

**Petrarch's Love** · 11-24-2009, 07:02 PM

burntpunk--As everyone else on this thread has said, the first thing you should do is take a deep breath and relax a bit. One thing about being very young is that you don't have the perspective to know that you are very young yet. When you're a bit precocious for your age and have been seriously engaged with something like writing earlier than many others are, this can give the impression that you've already achieved at the very highest level and should be settled in your path for life. In fact, no matter what you've done at the age of 14, you're still very much at the beginning of things when you're 17 and you are guaranteed to encounter some challenges and some failures as well as successes. This is both an exciting and a possibly frightening/discouraging thing. One part of what seems to be going on is that you're encountering the possibility of not being the smartest thing going for the first time, of not having easy success, of not possibly living up to the expectations that you and others have built up for you. This can be troubling for many reasons. One is that you enjoy and are comfortable in the role of being the "smart guy (or gal?)" who is special and marked apart. You're worried that you may no longer be "streets apart" from others, and so far ahead of the game that the teachers can't cope. You worry that the division between yourself and them may not be so large, may in fact be nonexistent (or that the other person may be even smarter/better!). This is a normal feeling for someone who has been in the habit of excelling as a youth, and it doesn't make you a bad person, it just means you haven't given yourself permission to explore the part of yourself that is like everyone else. You won't really lose your identity or what you think of as your core self if that street narrows down to where you're facing people who are your equals. Instead you'll be uncovering a previously hidden part of your identity, probably a much richer and satisfying one than the somewhat insecure sense of being superior that previously hid it.

That brings up a second reason that you seem to be going through a troubling time with this, which is that you're thinking a lot about the pressure of expectations from others and from yourself. It is probably your self expectation that is giving you the most grief, because it is through that that you are imagining how terrible it will be if other people see you failing. Then it becomes a vicious cycle in which the "arrogant" part of yourself that enjoys feeling different from everyone else lets you puff yourself up to the point where you feel you're making empty claims and boasts that you can't follow through with and you then feel so insecure and frightened by the possibility that everyone will find out that you can't follow through that you hide behind yet another of pretense and arrogance in the hopes that no one will find out. You'll only really break this cycle when you become comfortable with the idea of not being perfect, of being able to fail, of even appreciating your failures for being part of what connects you to every other person on this earth. The truth is that if you fail a little people will probably like you a bit better for it. Your writing and your study of literature will definitely be better if you are more in touch with any other part of yourself that is more in touch with other people, whether that involves failure or not.

This may mean spending some time being young, relaxing, even indulging in sex, drugs and alcohol a bit. Just be careful, especially with the last two, that you aren't so focused on filling an insecurity that you're starting to get unhealthily dependent or that you're messing with the sort of hard drugs that could seriously endanger your future. I know it sounds prudish, but it is important to have some moderation between enjoying life and engaging in rigorously disciplined and ambitious pursuits. It sounds like maybe you've been doing way too much of the latter, which leaves you vulnerable to overdoing the former. There's a difference between giving yourself some room for experimentation and surrendering yourself to screwing up so spectacularly that you lose out on some potentially really rewarding opportunities in life. There's also a difference between having some fun that supplements your pursuits in life and allowing things like drugs or alcohol to wholly become unhealthy replacements for what could be a much more rewarding focus or pursuit in your life. If you find that you're turning to these things only to avoid facing something else or especially if you start thinking you can't do without the drugs and alcohol, i.e. you're showing signs of becoming dependent (and don't lie to yourself if the signs are there), then you need to back off, perhaps even get some outside help. If you're doing these things just because you want the experience, because you're young and having fun and you need to have some kind of release that doesn't involve having to think too seriously once in awhile, then by all means enjoy.

As a note of parting, it sounds as though you do have the capacity of admirable discipline in sticking to your writing for a certain number of hours a day etc., which will hold you in good stead when inspiration strikes again and if you do ultimately decide you want to be a writer and/or literary scholar. You may, of course, decide you want to do something entirely different: "the world is all before you where to choose." If you do end up going into literary study then I can tell you already have a good sense of the necessary discipline for when ideas do come and you are now learning the necessary patience for when they don't. Every single writer of any kind has had to cope with writer's block. The main thing is to reassure yourself that it will pass and to remember that you will only make it worse by allowing yourself to worry about what others will think of you instead of biding your time, keeping yourself in decent practice technically speaking and keeping your mind alert to inspiration when it does come :

"FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;"

It's been annoying writers, and people in general, for several centuries at least.

**loki456** · 11-24-2009, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by dafydd manton

You're only doing A-levels, at your age, and you're worried about it?!? Stop taking life so seriously, you ain't going to get out of it alive, and, as someone else said, get a bit of living done. If you are reading because you think you ought to, it's a pretty rubbish motive. Relax, take life a bit easier and remember the old maxim - the first symptom of a nervous breakdown is starting to believe that what you do is important!!!

haha i love this post!!

but it is true, being a younger person myself and being in the same position as you in my last year of high school, my mother said this to me.
'why are you stressing, life is life and it will live on with or without you in it'

hmm... got me thinking, indeed not the predicated logic I long for, but nonetheless effective. you are off to university, hopefully doing something you enjoy, for me it was medicine. so being stuck in this futile arrogance and self loathing of a time when knowledge was beautiful and the black ink sustained more than just the poetic justice of a free thinker. I found myself drawn to that which I loved, and then what I had previously loved (writing and reading non-medicine based books) flowed back. I now enjoy writing stories again, have a novel getting published, started the second novel and have now just started to collaborate a book of short stories with a friend.

you said you wanted to be in the right frame of mind for university, that is a naive look at something you couldn't know. what is the right frame of mind? why can't you go in with any mindset and still attain the highest of experiences? I didn't have a clue what to expect, I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing there on many an occasion, and yet, here I stand a fully fledged doctor, graduated this year and have had the best experiences of my life. time is your teacher, university is your drunk friends ready to show you a good time and your books, well they'll become your mentor.

just spend some time doing what interests you now, your literary ingenuity may have been your pleasure in the past, but you now just need to refuel. hence why you mind has wandered to a different green pasture, and in time it will wander back and you will be the wiser and the more fruitful because of it. University is a whole new beast, experience it in its entirity and trust me, you will have stories to write for the 10 years after.

good luck at uni, hope you have as much fun as I did!!

**JuniperWoolf** · 11-25-2009, 01:35 AM

I'm glad that you posted this thread, because I'm a 21 year old Canadian student going through sort of the same thing and there's been some great advice. When I was in my high school of two hundred people, I was the best writer and top biology student. My success became the only thing that defined me. When I got to the U of A (which has about 40,000 students) I fully expected to be the best again. Unfortunately, the U of A is known as the best scientific research school in the country (naturally attracting some of the best biology students in the world) and I wasn't as special anymore. I lost my identity, and school lost its allure.

Petrarch's Love, your post helped me a lot.

**mayneverhave** · 11-25-2009, 02:08 AM

Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

I'm glad that you posted this thread, because I'm a 21 year old Canadian student going through sort of the same thing and there's been some great advice. When I was in my high school of two hundred people, I was the best writer and top biology student. My success became the only thing that defined me. When I got to the U of A (which has about 40,000 students) I fully expected to be the best again. Unfortunately, the U of A is known as the best scientific research school in the country (naturally attracting some of the best biology students in the world) and I wasn't as special anymore. I lost my identity, and school lost its allure.

Petrarch's Love, your post helped me a lot.

True, but it also provides you with a sense of community. The biggest problem I have is that none of my closest friends really read anything and consider my literary taste as me putting on airs (to a degree). The University, or at least my English professors, provide someone with specific interests (that may or not be life defining) with people who are interested in the same.

**Scheherazade** · 11-25-2009, 03:56 AM

With such lengthy replies, I doubt if we will help our friend rediscover his love of reading!

I say go out and have some fun; do physical things, maybe or give the kind of books you wouldn't read a chance and then try again.

Good luck!

**Leannain** · 11-25-2009, 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by mayneverhave

True, but it also provides you with a sense of community. The biggest problem I have is that none of my closest friends really read anything and consider my literary taste as me putting on airs (to a degree). The University, or at least my English professors, provide someone with specific interests (that may or not be life defining) with people who are interested in the same.

Why care about what your friends think? or better yet. Get some friends who share your tastes? In this case, a liking for Literature? The University and the teachers are there to provide a path. It's up to you to take that path or leave it be. Shape that path the way you want to; but always remember, Potential wasted is a a great crime.

Everyone can do what your ego is asking for: drinking, clubbing, and the other aspects of physical interaction with women.

Not everyone can be said, can think of lastly, to be a writer.

Take it for me. The ' wild life' ain't worth it. Drink gets boring after a while(and who knows - you might develop a drinking problem) women are interesting to deal with when you don't have much experience with them - sadly, your interest will probably lower itself, naturally, as it happens to any human being who finally has the object of desire.

And clubbing. Well, it's just a place where you hear music really loud.

Focus on the energy that dwells inside of you: your creativity.

I'm going through something similar. It's not the same situation because whereas you are interested in the common activities of the young male, I've come out of it and now, what interests me to the uttermost level of being is to achieve what Hemingway achieved.

Nothing, besides creativity, the operation of the pen that makes a man an artist of the ink, is worth salt.

**blazeofglory** · 11-25-2009, 06:46 AM