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[Doc]

I want to kiss you. In the mouth, with my mouth.

Noun: Oralingus.

[miles]

Hey at least LFM isn't not producing anything AND hitting us up for money.

[littlefallsmets]

I don't know what to tell you guys and a few girls. At this point in my life, I got enough self-confidence to half-fill a thimble on a good day. That's what it basically comes down to. I feel like I could deliever the Roy Baty speech from the end of Bladerunner except ending every sentence fragment with the words "and I fucked it up somehow".

What isn't beaten to shit by failing over and over and over again, failing at shit petty like film jobs and shit Really Real like trying my best to help my brother with his medical problems and getting thrown out of his girlfriend's house for my troubles, is beaten to shit by the fact that I'm over-educated in analyzing the kind of work I want to write and can only see the flaws in even the best things I do. The engines run but the shocks and struts are fucked and every bump in the road feels like it is gonna shake the rig to pieces. I'm tired of being bad at everything. I'm exhausted with failure.

If this makes me a hypocrite for trying to psychoanalyze the collapse of someone else's work that creatively brilliant for years and was by any measure a roaring success for a much more brief window in time, I don't know. On the one hand, it is the internet and the whole point of the internet is pissing in the wind about shit like that and maybe I'm being ridiculous trying to defend myself for it.

Or maybe I'm just making an autopsy of someone else's dreams because I'm sick of cursing into mirrors but the bile still has to go somewhere. Christ knows.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Ayn has some knowledge for you about your situation, but you don't want to hear any of that so I'm not going to waste my time.

[littlefallsmets]

I actually appreciate your concern, Cap, thank you.

But the deeper I get in the pit, I end up with more empathy for the way life steps on everyone's throat like a fuck*ng boot forever, not less.

If this is a flaw in my wiring I dunno, but the more it hurts, the more I can feel everyone else's pain and feel like the whole show should be rigged to ameliorate this feeling for everyone.

Declaring myself an ubermensch responsible only to myself and my desires would only make me realize how shitty I'd be at the occupation of ubermensch.

[jay-ell]

I think what we are doing here is having an impromptu Intervention for smets.

I hope you're not offended or bothered by this, smets, but I agree with the others re: you needing to commit to living the dream. (I also am intrigued by the Onstad book and my gut response is, "Oh shit co-writing is where I'm a viking where do I sign up," but as you say it's unlikely that 'Stad would be down with it.)

I say this as a generally timid and risk-averse person who fears failure more than death -- you gotta jump in. Being an unpublished writer is like being an "actress" who waits tables and goes to auditions in her spare time.

Getting published is gut-wrenching. It's terrifying and painful and nerve-wracking and awful, and when you get an acceptance letter it's a better high than any drug you can imagine. (Well, I dunno. Cocaine might be better, I never tried it.) Dithering around and not submitting work for publication is like refusing to fall in love for fear of getting your heart broken. No risk, no reward.

I am a busy lady, but I am also a good fuck*ng copy-editor. I have a brotherly affection for you, so I am offering right here and right now to read anything you send me and offer suggestions and feedback as often as you need it, free of charge. However, I do this on the following conditions: whatever you send has to be COMPLETE (whether it's a short story or a novel), and after I've marked it up and you've revised it, you have to submit it someplace for publication (even if it's just a non-paid literary magazine).

This is a thing I usually charge good money for, I am offering you hundreds of dollars worth of services for free in an effort to get you to *do* something with your writing. This is because I believe in you and I want you to be happy.

Also because I believe that all writing is collaborative. Behind every successful fiction writer is a supportive copy-editor or somesuch person (see also: Tabitha King) who reads endless drafts of a work before it's ready to put in front of a publishing agent's tender eyes. I have Pedro for this, and I don't know if your SO reads/comments on your stuff, but if you don't want me to read it please get someone, because editing your own work is incredibly difficult and you do not have to do it alone. And nothing helps you get over submission anxiety better than someone whose opinion you value saying, "It's excellent, send it in."

It's your work and it's your dream, but I think you're trying to do it in a vacuum, and that is sucking (sorry) the life out of you. There is a whole community of people here and IRL who support you and want you to succeed; let us help you and encourage you instead of looking at your shoes and telling us why you don't deserve our help. Are you emotionally damaged? Maybe, yeah even probably. Join the fuck*ng club. Healthy, happy people are terrible writers; stop using your pain as an excuse and start using it as a tool.

[wombat]

Healthy, happy people are terrible writers; stop using your pain as an excuse and start using it as a tool.

I strongly disagree with the first part of that, but that's no reflection on the usefulness of the advice in the second part.

Here's my take on the situation: LFM, you say you are too good at analyzing the flaws in what you write. Well, presumably you can do the same to what everyone else writes. I am sure this means that you can find many published writers who are worse than you are. If they can get published, why not you?

So the question is, do you want to be better than everyone else, or do you want to be published? The former is probably impossible, but the latter sets a much lower bar.

[dejavroom]

One writes, or one doesn't; there is no in-between. Eugene O'Neill had a pretty tortured life, and he gushed out play after play until he died (of course, precisely because of that tortured life).

Which shows that there are no possible excuses for not writing. Writing is organic and coterminous with life - something what happens to writing-inclined people that helps them sort out the world around them, - be this world happy, functional, dysfunctional, desperate... The material sign that will allow future generations to associate the idea of "writer" to your name will have to be some sample, even if modest, of written material.

It's rather simple, really: One writes, or one doesn't.

[Nabubrush]

LFM, I mostly like your contributions here (sometimes I skim, sue me). I do want to thank you, as was sort of alluded to above, for not asking me for money. Other than that, I got nothin'.

[arkabee]

I don't know what to tell you guys and a few girls. At this point in my life, I got enough self-confidence to half-fill a thimble on a good day. That's what it basically comes down to. I feel like I could deliever the Roy Baty speech from the end of Bladerunner except ending every sentence fragment with the words "and I fucked it up somehow".

What isn't beaten to shit by failing over and over and over again, failing at shit petty like film jobs and shit Really Real like trying my best to help my brother with his medical problems and getting thrown out of his girlfriend's house for my troubles, is beaten to shit by the fact that I'm over-educated in analyzing the kind of work I want to write and can only see the flaws in even the best things I do. The engines run but the shocks and struts are fucked and every bump in the road feels like it is gonna shake the rig to pieces. I'm tired of being bad at everything. I'm exhausted with failure.

If this makes me a hypocrite for trying to psychoanalyze the collapse of someone else's work that creatively brilliant for years and was by any measure a roaring success for a much more brief window in time, I don't know. On the one hand, it is the internet and the whole point of the internet is pissing in the wind about shit like that and maybe I'm being ridiculous trying to defend myself for it.

Or maybe I'm just making an autopsy of someone else's dreams because I'm sick of cursing into mirrors but the bile still has to go somewhere. Christ knows.

i want to have sex with this post.

also, i would buy the book you are wanting to buy too.  because the arc of onstadt would be cool.

of course i read the larry flint biography, too, and found that interesting, so, ok then.

[littlefallsmets]

It's rather simple, really: One writes, or one doesn't.

Oh, I write. I write every day all the time. With a few months break here or there, I've written something every day since... 1997. I got that down, the whole ten thousand hours thing, a dude is there. Watching television, writing and feeling sorry for myself, I got myself into Outlier territory on all three of these talents. I am a triple threat of things everyone thinks they are good at, no matter how good or bad they actually are at those things. I am also good at typing, using a telephone, using the internet and driving a car. I am a fuck*ng Renaissance dynamo at things that everyone believes they know how to do so they are valued by no one.

It is writing things of a length substantive enough to be invested where if it sucks, it is a personal judgement upon me. It has been years since I have written something that took more than a few days to toss off and seriously shared it in any way. Anything longer than that and I either stop before it is done or I look at the first draft and shove it in a  drawer or file folder ashamed of myself.

As for the rest of your-all fine and kind advice, gimmie some time to consider that. There is weapons-grade Family Drama about and I am not thinking clearly about anything.

[pmcd9]

Y'know, I always find it easier to let other people kick the fuck-all out of me and my ideas than to do it my ownself. Because I kick way harder on me than any outsider. When I want a break I let other people take a crack at me.

I'm just saying, man. Let other people beat you to piss, 'cause if they're friends, real friends, they won't cut you any slack but they'll prolly find something good in there for you to build on as well...that you don't/won't/can't see. If they're good with it and you're good with it ain't nothing lost by running it past some stranger. Fuck that guy anyways.

This is good advice.

What isn't beaten to shit by failing over and over and over again, failing at shit petty like film jobs and shit Really Real like trying my best to help my brother with his medical problems and getting thrown out of his girlfriend's house for my troubles, is beaten to shit by the fact that I'm over-educated in analyzing the kind of work I want to write and can only see the flaws in even the best things I do. The engines run but the shocks and struts are fucked and every bump in the road feels like it is gonna shake the rig to pieces. I'm tired of being bad at everything. I'm exhausted with failure.

If you can see the flaws you can fix them.

[AugustWest]

Some platitudes:

You can only be what you think you are.

The more you do, the more you can do.

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Attitude is everything.

Use as you will.

[pmcd9]

And here's a platypus you can use.

[AugustWest]

One more thing.  I think you should ponder the difference between "being a writer", "making a living by writing", and "being a respected author." because these are are widely different goals.