>Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God, how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens.
How do I wrote prose like this?
I've often heard it described as biblical. What exactly is biblical about it?
It's biblical because only Americans are dumb enough to like it
>>7320714
be a huge fan of paperback best-sellers, a handful of retail classics and esteemed literary talents like Orson Scott Card. Pipe in a loose reference system (include the tarot, some basic mythologies, &c) and a story that teases allegory into a word processor. Market as your 'darkest' work yet and wait for the paycheck and the call from Oprah
>>7320714
I'm guessing it's Biblical because it reminds Americans of Genesis or something, the whole opening line is about something coming into existence.
How did you choose your pen name?
>>7320626
Nickname-Surname Initial-Middle Name
So if my name were Robert Peter Tamblin it would become Bobby T Peters
>>7320634
Nice system.
It's an anagram of my full name.
anyone here have attention deficit disorder and find it hard to maintain focus while reading?
I don't know if I do or not. I use all these little tricks to stay focused, like tapping my foot, playing a guitar (unplugged), walking around, etc. Ever since I was little I've always read books during the sermons at church in order to quiet that crazy part of my brain. Just having two things going works pretty well.
There's also just a flat out discipline sort of thing. I don't want to be medicated, because I see what people are like off their meds. You have to be more disciplined than your average person.
>>7320518
Yeah, I'm not diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I have it, and I've always had trouble staying focused while reading except with the most absolutely gripping material.
Try listening to white noise through earphones. Simplynoise.com works well enough. It really soothes my brain and helps me get into the reading groove.
How are the Bond books?
Extremely problematic from what I've heard.
dung-dung-dung-dung-dung dung-dung-dung dung-dung-dung-dung-dung dung-dung-dung dung-dung-dung-dung-dung dung-dung-dung
DUNG-DUN DUNG-DUNG-DUNG dung-dung dung-dung-dung
Bad. Real bad.
Lately I've been unable to stop a thought popping into my head whilst reading fiction: 'this never really happened so it doesn't matter'. Now, I know that this is a stupid thing to think for a variety of reasons, but no matter how irrational I try to convince myself it is, it just keeps happening, and when it does it takes all enjoyment out of reading the book until it recedes back from the forefront of my thoughts.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a thought pattern I can follow to rid myself of this nagging feeling?
Prove that anything in the past 'really happened' B)
>>7320474
Yeah, this sort of epistemological nihilism is the path I tried to take me out of the thought but it doesn't seem to work. I don't know what else to do, my silly fucking brain is ruining fiction for me!
>>7320474
you're just going to end convincing him that nothing matters at all
I want to write genreshit for plebs and make $$$. What themes and tropes do mainstream audiences like? What do they hate? How wide should I cast my demographic net?
>>7320398
Look in the mirror op
>>7320398
>I want to write stuff and make a bunch of money. What do?
Fucking list what specific genres you have in mind heathen. You can't just announce yourself and command those near you to give you knowledge because you command it. Form a list of what you think you can write, make a list of what you can kind of write, and then make a list of what you can write. After that weigh what you can write with how profitable it is, but before that grasp what profit is and what it means. Fuck you smdh tbqh faam
just think like a beta and write wish fulfillment hack shit that plays on comfortable tropes.
>in deep space humans encounter a powerful race which transports them to a word which is in medieval stasis, flat and goes on forever in every direction.
>young man saves a little girl in a traffic accident while stationed at a military base somewhere in yourope. He visits her at the hospital and she invites him over for dinner where he realizes that she is cared for by only her older sister who is trying to keep things together.
Local thugs are making the block a bad pace and protag1 needs to give up his prior duties in order to find a place where he can really make a difference
just pick an idea which is eyerollingly predictable. Plebs dont want challenge or substance, they want comfort wrapped in so much style they dont realize they have had this before.
literature is everything you read?
i don't like this chair
>>7320316
why?
The literary lifestyle relies on literary feels which depend on the sense of literally that conveys actuality and truth and not necessarily only the sense of literary 'as an as such that contains words'. You should know this much without me having to put it explicitly, but if you didn't there you go.
Do you read physical or digital?
Those who buy physical, how much do you spend on books? New or used?
Those who download digital, do you find you read more or less as a result? Are you ever less inclined to finish books?
>>7320285
I always buy physical, it costs a shit ton for me, especially if I want to get books from Amazon or eBay and have to pay for shipping to Australia (and the shipping more often than not costs more than the damn book). But in the end it's worth it because I like to get hardback books and they look really nice.
Pic related. Cost about $80 but better than reading from my phone.
>>7320331
Hello fellow Australian anon. Those are some lovely looking copies. Have you tried www.bookdepository.com when buying online?
They are from the UK, but books normally arrive within 7 or so days from my experience, but they're usually a little bit cheaper than locally, as well as Amazon, and their prices fluctuate a little every now and then so there's a chance you might even be able to get them cheaper.
>>7320285
I also pretty much only buy physical. It's not cheap, but yes, I am definitely more inclined to finish something I start physically.
>>7320349
Interesting, I haven't used that site before. If it's cheaper than buying locally and from Amazon, 7 or so days isn't that bad either, then that's pretty good. Thanks for letting me know about it anon.
What is the "Space Funeral" of literature?
Space Funeral is literature.
>>7320277
I don't recall literature having gameplay and a god-tier soundtrack.
Good game, OP. Very fun. It's hard finding an equivalent for the mixture of eerie darkness, comedy elements, and sketchy designs the game implements, though.
Faust, by Goethe is the closest I can think of. But Faust is really more masterfully crafted and not as abrasive through intentional design as Space Funeral is.
Why is all postmodern philosophy more social theory than anything else?
Because postmodern philosophy and continental philosophy as a whole isn't real philosophy anymore. That's what the analytics are for
Because you don't exist by yourself. You only exist in relation to other people and to your environment. Hence, the social part of social theory.
It begins
Is this Gene Wolfe?
>Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Teehee.
>>7320195
Jelly
I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and
often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that
babies are born pretty much alike, and
that the sole agencies in creating
differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application
and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to
pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school,
the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the
contrary. I acknowledge freely the great power of education and social
influences in developing the active powers of the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use in developing the muscles of a blacksmith's
arm, and no further.
Everybody who has trained himself to
physical exercises discovers the
extent of his muscular powers to a nicety. When he begins to walk, to row,
to use the dumb bells, or to run, he finds
to his great delight that his thews
strengthen, and his endurance of fatigue increases day after day. So long as
he is a novice, he perhaps flatters
himself there is hardly an assignable
limit to the education of his muscles; but the daily gain is soon discovered
to diminish, and at last it vanishes
altogether. His maximum performance
becomes a rigidly determinate quantity. He learns to an inch, how high or
how far he can jump, when he has attained the highest state of training. He
learns to half a pound, the force he can exert on the dynamometer, by
compressing it. He can strike a blow against the machine used to measure
impact, and drive its index to a certain graduation, but no further. So it is
in running, in rowing, in walking,
and in every other form of physical
exertion. There is a definite limit to the muscular powers of every man,
which he cannot by any education or exertion overpass.
This is precisely analogous to the experience that every student has had
of the working of his mental powers.
The eager boy, when he first goes to
school and confronts intellectual difficulties, is astonished at his progress.
He glories in his newly-developed mental grip and growing capacity for
application, and, it may be, fondly believes it to be within his reach to
become one of the heroes who have left their mark upon the history of the
world. The years go by; he competes in the examinations of school and
college, over and over again with
his fellows, and soon finds his place
among them. He knows he can beat such and such of his competitors; that
there are some with whom he runs
on equal terms, and others whose
intellectual feats he cannot even
approach. Probably his vanity still
continues to tempt him, by whispering in a new strain.
It tells him that classics, mathematics, and other subjects taught in
universities, are mere scholastic specialities, and no test of the more
valuable intellectual powers. It reminds him of numerous instances of
persons who had been unsuccessful in
the competitions of youth, but who
had shown powers in after-life that made them the foremost men of their
age. Accordingly, with newly furbished hopes, and with all the ambition of
twenty-two years of age, he leaves his University and enters a larger field
of competition. The same kind of experience awaits him here that he has
already gone through. Opportunities occur—they occur to every man—and
he finds himself incapable of grasping them. He tries, and is tried in many
things. In a few years more, unless he is incurably blinded by self-conceit,
he learns precisely of what performances he is capable, and what other
enterprises lie beyond his compass. When he reaches mature life, he is
confident only within certain limits, and knows, or ought to know, himself
just as he is probably judged of by the world, with all his unmistakeable
weakness and all his undeniable strength. He is no longer tormented into
hopeless efforts by the fallacious promptings of overweening vanity, but
he limits his undertakings to matters below the level of his reach, and finds
true moral repose in an honest conviction that he is engaged in as much
good work as his nature has rendered him capable of performing.
There's enough evidence supporting it in the Bell Curve as pertains to intelligence
In athletics, the West Africans are better sprinters, east africans are better marathon runners.
Hey /lit/, I have a question or two about how you guys are reading older books.
I'm not a native English speaker (I'm Eastern European) so obviously I am at a disadvantage reading English literature compared to someone from like the UK or the US. Anyway, recently I've acquired a collection of e-books - from Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs among others, and frankly I can't fucking read them. I mean, okay I can, if I put an effort into it, but who the hell wants to spend half a minute deciphering each sentence? It's obnoxious, and it sucks all the joy out of reading. Same with any other book that's older than ~75-100 years.
While reading these abominations I constantly wish I could just punch the writer in the face, take their pen away, and go "no no no, not like that, let ME do it" then I'd rewrite the whole thing in modern English, which I understand perfectly well.
I can't for the life of me understand why would anyone subject themselves to these books. But then again I'm assuming others too have trouble reading them, which may not be the case. Is it though? Can you guys read older literature easily? Are there any advantages to reading them at all, or it's fine if somebody just sticks to modern novels?
"..."
I can read them easily as English is in my mother tongue. I enjoy reading 19th and early-20th century literature. It is important to read those texts in order to expand your vocabulary and explore the uses of different syntax.
>>7320131
The Earth is only 6,000 years old. Maybe you should stop reading fiction and open up a Bible.
>http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emjl45edjek/the-worlds-top-earning-a/
Why are they all white?
History has shown that whites are the best authors.
Why would you think that it's any different today?
>>7320066
I find this offensive as a minority.
why the top earning rappers or jazz artists are black? why the best ping pong players are asians?
Are the Neo-platonists worth reading? They intrigue me, but aside from their aid in the forming of Christianity, what did they bring to the table? Could one gain as an individual through reading them?
I've heard the Enneads are quite difficult, is reading Plato sufficient? Or are there any secondary sources I should read?
Thank you in advance for any aid or advice :)
>>7320069
Read the sticky shitposter. I'm trying to have a sensible discussion about Neo-platonist literature; if you wish to shitpost, please go to [s4s] or the toilet.
his life story is pretty interesting
>>7320061
I've gone from Plato to Augustine and didn't have problems understanding it.
But from my friends who studied the neoplatonists extensively, I've heard pretty good things.
