The common advice I see on this board is to write every day no matter how hard it is. I've tried this and it's just agonizing with a horrible result. Wouldn't the better advice be to curate an environment and time every day where good writing may take place instead of forcing it?
The best way to write is to read.
No.
You need to treat creative work like work. You write, you edit, and you improve.
You do not get better at welding or carpentry by waiting for inspiration.
>>7857118
This is just something people who shouldn't be writing in the first place tell themselves. If you even have to ask these sorts of questions there is no hope for you, let alone forcing yourself to do something you have no talent for and don't enjoy.
>tfw you will never get to suck on her toes while she reads you poems by Hermann Hesse
>>7857156
>This is just something people who shouldn't be writing in the first place tell themselves.
People should write when they have something to say.
>let alone forcing yourself to do something you have no talent for and don't enjoy.
You're the one advocating forcing writing. Forcing it is precisely what I'm taking issue with.
>>7857118
Well do you have something you want to write about to begin with. If not, you should spend your time thinking. If you do have something, then writing on a schedule is the best way. The major inspiration part is done. Writing (like other people have pointed out in this thread) is a craft that you need to practice just like anything else.
>>7857171
>tfw you will never get to suck on her toes while she reads your poems to Herman Hesse
>>7857178
I was agreeing with you. The business about 'curating an environment' sounds like bullshit to me as well. If you aren't writing in the first place why are you trying to make yourself do so
>>7857178
I'm not the anon who you're responding to, but I also think that writing should be handled like a habit.
You think people should write when they have something to say, but you are a unique human with his own world-view and impression of existence.
This implies that you have something to say, whether it is important or not is for the reader to decide.
I should say that you never need force yourself to write. When you sit down to write, you are expressing who you are through symbols, it doesn't need to be forced, it should be as natural as your own being.
That being said, you might not write anything that you feel is pertinent until you are inspired to do so, but you are cultivating the experience necessary to write articulately what you mean to say.
If you feel like sitting down to write off-the-cuff is a waste of time, then do something else.
But if you have the time, then it shouldn't concern you what quality of writing you express, for it's a continuous learning process, and the fastest way to improve is to read and write.
That's the prose side, as for the message, it will come to you eventually.
Your writing may be better at certain times, but it will certainly improve the more you do it.
One day you might be writing more poorly than another, but the linear growth is continuous, even with the ups and downs.
>>7857118I'm no feetfag but I really want to lick her feet.
>>7857118
No because that's just plain procrastination, anon (something we're all guilty of, for sure).
The best way to write is to force yourself to write, no matter what. A page a day, although very casual and a little lazy, would certainly help you get into the swing of things.
Write to get better at writing that's why you do it everyday, it also helps to form a work ethic
Not write to get better ideas, you read or think for that
how does one get better at writing by writing?
how does writing on its own, with no criticism or feedback, make you better at writing?
I can see that one who writes a lot every day will eventually become faster, or develope a better handwriting, but how does one also get a better writer? Isn't that only achievable by reading and studying?
>>7857292
Do you get better at an instrument by studying people play everyday? By just listening to music?
No. You get better by practicing everyday
>>7857306
yes, but playing an instrument is mostly a matter of muscle memory, which you naturally train with practice. We could also argue that, while playing, you can hear the music and correct eventual mistakes.
Writing is more similar to composing. It's not a physical ability where you need to train your body, it's a mental one, and I can't see how writing, without getting external feedbacks or influences, could help you developing a better mental ability to write. I can see how it will surely help your hand write faster though.
I am not doubting the fact that writing makes you a better writer, I am just curious on why it is so.
>curate an environment . . .
The risk here is that you eternally differ responsibility under the guise of "it's not me, it's the environment", chasing some veritable Eden.
If all your writing is a horrible result, that sounds more like an internal issue than an external one, even if it's hard to admit. If some of your writing is good, analyze it and put in the work to distinguish what separates it from the bad, don't reduce it to "oh well, I had exactly 2 eggs and half an orange that morning.. a-and I spun around twice before brushing my teeth".
Having said that, time of day is important for establishing routines, and trying to write after 12 hours of hard labor is affecting.. and of course if you live in Chernobyl, or a fumigation tent you might have a point.
>>7857306
Listening to other musicians and musical works is fundamental to improving as a musician. Of course the idea is that you implement what you hear into your own practicing.
>>7857250
Pleb.
>>7857124
This
My writing was at its best when i was younger and read like two books per week. The internet came..
>>7857118
nah, you need to force it until writing is second nature.
>>7857118
That's gross and uncivilised
How often do you write /lit/? Multiple times a day? A single sitting? For how long, and what is the best time of the day for you?
>>7857232
"hehe anon that tickles! Quick, lick the other one before someone comes by..."
>>7857455
>>7857455
I'm both into feet and tickling, but reading things like this just makes me cringe.
>advices should apply to everyone
lel, do whatever works for you
>>7857412
> long toe nails
> athlete's foot
> toe nail fungus
> dirty feet
> stanky feet like popcorn rotting if they haven't been washed
> long foot hair
> like really long retarded hands with tiny fingers
Writing regularly should include not only writing down the text but also developing plot, developing character, and revising. You've got to learn how to revise because first drafts are generally bad.
Read books on writing so you aren't fumbling around in the dark.
You need to get criticism. Take a class or find a writing group.
Read short stories or listen to Selected Shorts or the Moth podcasts. Short stories will expose you you to a range of styles and techniques.
Don't try to be poetic, lofty, or historical with your prose.
>>7857118
That advice is essentially the same thing. If someone tells you to learn golf you need to practice golf, obviously it's assumed they meant you need to find a course and equipment first. The advice is still to write every day, if you can't find a way to do that then you need to find a way or stop.
>>7857588
None of these things have to be the case, except the last one, if you want to perceive them that way that is. Stay pleb.
>>7857588
> like really long retarded hands with tiny fingers
>>7857592
>Don't try to be poetic, lofty, or historical with your prose
Why are you shitting on Milton?
>>7857598
that pic is hot to me in ways you cannot understand
>>7857637
Believe me, mein Freund, I do understand.
>>7857637
>in ways you cannot understand
It has women in it?
>>7857606
yeah but what do you write for practice if you don't know what to write?
>>7857679
I remember this
>>7857679
>a skeleton's key to finnegans wake
is that essential
>>7857679
> Needs external analysis for FW
Dropped
>>7857679
Cool.
>>7857679
those feet have more veins then a penis m8
no thanks.
Also coming from someone who's a non writer, but wanted to write, i wanted to write most and started coming up with ideas when i read for a month with no other activities.
If all you do is read you eventually want to write, but if you go on computer and what not you'll lose it.
>>7857688
It's actually worth reading and a major thing in its own right
>>7857701
should i get it over any other guides then
>>7857326
because when you have to figure out how to weave phrases, sentences, paragraphs/lines, motifs, metaphors and images together, you're training your brain in a way you haven't done before. it's a new experience every time. feedback only gets you so far, and only if you're already at a certain stage. training your brain to make those connections, to do that weaving, is more important than any feedback, which can only tell you a very broad "good" or "bad." meanwhile, good influence comes in the form of reading.
>>7857709
If it were me I'd get something more recent aimed at college people as a basic guide, but also read the Skeleton Key. But I like Campbell so maybe biased.
>>7857463
That's your cognitive dissonance telling you that both feet and tickling are disgusting when applied to adults
>>7857727
So I should rather tickle children's feet?
>>7857718
I see, thank you for your answer. Do you think it would be more effective to exercise by writing short stories, bigger projects or just what's on your head at the moment?
>>7857729
Yes let them tickle yours too though.
>>7857736
This is the strangest discussion I've had in a while.
>>7857743
you don't go to many other boards then
>>7857828
Not anymore, no. Mostly just /lit/ now, sometimes /b/ when I'm drunk/ high.
>>7857446
about an hour of wildly zipping and zooming through my evernotes picking for errors like a chimp for lice beginning at around 2-3 in the morning
>>7857637
>he likes girls with a bad attitude
just fuck off
Why write if you don't have anything to say?
This software helps tons with organization etc etc.
Hope it helps: http://www.ravensheadservices.com/
>>7857171
Ew.
Hesse fucking sucks
>>7857841
Girl detected.
REAL GIRL DETECTED!
How to get better at writing: constantly try to evaluate very specifically what you're doing wrong, you accomplish nothing by just saying its crap
>spend 1 hour per day writing
>spend 8 hours per day biting knuckle, stressing about not writing
>repeat until first draft is complete
When I write I always fool myself into thinking "okay that's good progress, take a break now" even when it's not actually good progress. Then I put off writing for several days before writing a couple of sentences again. Repeat forever.
How do I overcome this way of thinking?
Do the Ray Bradbury Challenge
>>7857118
yeah youre right, the best way to write probably isnt to write
Does blogging/writing articles for websites count towards daily rquirement or does it need to be muh prose
>>7860344
what about blogging prose?
>>7860344
I cut my salt on 4chan posts. I am compiling all of them into a post-postmodernist/paleo-futurist tome. I suppose really it is a series of cantos called A LEAP INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM.
It's Dostoevsky in the new era, Dickensian London morphs into the WORLD WIDE WEB, where all sorts of villains, pedophiles, and freaks become the center of our great tale.
>>7857212
It's really easy for that to turn into laziness. You should always be writing; sometimes having your ideal environment, sometimes not. When you feel like you're getting nowhere compare your shit day to your last shit day and then try a new approach. Work is work is work
If the time it takes to set up said environment takes a significant amount of time away from writing it isn't worth it.
