I want to write a book, or i just had the idea to write a book.

I'm writing a big ol' hunk of shit for more than 6 years.

Finally got the nerve to share a piece in the critique thread and someone said it was garbage. Only feedback I've ever had.

I hate it so much but I love it and I can't stop.

>>8864353
did you feel like it was a waste? how did you start? keep going anon, if it makes you happy, you shouldn't stop.

>>8864356
what, did i make a pleb thread?

>>8864401
>did you feel like it was a waste? how did you start? keep going anon, if it makes you happy, you shouldn't stop.

Thanks man, I won't stop. I don't think it was a waste, but I am at the point where I need to finish it to sort of get it out of my life and move on to the next one. This has literally been in the back of my mind for years and years and years, and I'm over it. Actually the bigger waste at this point would be to NOT finish it. I need to show myself I can complete it.

I think I started by just writing bits and pieces of angsty young adult philosophy while drunk and high on various drugs, then I started creating characters that were going through dramas to justify them. At the same time I wrote new segments that made fun of the old ones, until eventually it became like a vast amalgamation of shitty purple prose and non-fiction all jumbled together in a self-conscious in-joke with no real punch line.

>>8864411
put a little ... im interested

>>8864411
how many pages so far? is like a 100-150 page good? or do you think it is to ambitious to start with?

>>8864343
You have to decide the title and general cover design. Yes, now, it'll be too late afterwards, this will take you longer than you think. A catchy title and cover can make or break you.

>>8864343

>Should i begin by researching the structure of a book? or should i just start writing?

Whatever works for you. I'd recommend starting small though, maybe with a few novellas, before the main event. The practice is invaluable and you're less likely to churn out shit. I structure my work before I make a start as this removes the possibility of writer's block.

>how long should I write

Rule of thumb: the standard novel is generally 70k to 100k.

>any of you guys writing anything

Little vignettes to submit to lit magazines, and I'll soon be editing the novel I finished a month or so back. I'm also starting research for the next novel.

>>8864450
>A catchy title and cover can make or break you.
are you memeing on me? cause this holds some truth.

>>8864421
>how many pages so far?
So far mine has more than 500 pages, more than 170000 words. It's a fucking doosy.

>is like a 100-150 page good?
Good in terms of what? What are you trying to do?

>do you think it is to ambitious to start with?
I wouldn't set your ambitions around a page length, I would set it around what you are trying to accomplish with the work.

>put a little ... im interested
The narrative is so fragmented and inconsistent that one bit will not give a good indication of the rest... (and vice versa). You're probably going to say it's garbage... but I suppose I should face my fears. Right now, they're in a car:

Jimmy turned around and said, “Your own writing deceives you. You hurtle toward some great catastrophe that has been brought about by your own unconscious desires – and so you want it to happen. And it WILL happen, but you will be sourly disappointed once it is all over. You will be left with a piece of your own mind fighting against the fact that reality is whatever you want it to be, and yours is incredibly boring. How can you be unsatisfied by alien entities screaming different needs from the infinite hall inside your head? How can you be unsatisfied by these conversations, about far away places that you have never been and never seen? How can you not penetrate the darkness of your own lack of interest and see that it is protecting you from doing anything worthwhile? How can you not see that you need to grow up, that it doesn’t get any better than this! It doesn’t get any better than this! It does not get any better than it is right now, so why are you wasting your time being less than completely absorbed and interested? Where else are you, Magnus? Magnus? Magnus?”

My stomach dropped into my testicles. I knew the answer to his question and by extension every question conceivable. His goofy grin told me that he knew as well. My excitement increased in frequency while the car drifted into the wrong lane. I heard an electric whining in my ears, high pitched and getting higher, approaching the white point at which I could no longer process audio. An oncoming truck bleeped its horn. Laylah snapped awake.

“Magnus!” Mother yelled, right before metal shards crumpled into Jimmy and Laylah in the front seat, and my head crushed into a bloody swirl of brain and bone.

>>8864653
Another excerpt from nowhere in particular:

Somewhere during the evolution of the Homo sapien, the left hemisphere of their brain mutinied into a highly specialized, reality-filtering organism that could manipulate sensory data into phonetic symbols, and control the nine laryngeal muscles that produce speech. At first, the Palaeolithic humanoids were self-centered, imitative, and uncreative – much like me during the “terrible twos.” I staggered around behind my parents, mimicking the sounds that they made until I could reproduce sound units that made any adults around me croon with joy. I used the sounds irrationally, playfully. I repeated them when I felt compelled by emotions or just plain trancelike thoughtlessness (the same technique used by ancient Shamans to induce states of spiritual receptivity). I was completely impressed by the activation of my neurosemantic circuit, and so were the other people around me. They encouraged the imprinting of their native tongue, including all of the slangs, hidden values, and philosophical assumptions. (“That’s a snail!” “That’s naughty!” “You’ll make yourself sick!” “I love you!” “Mummy is just being silly!” “You’re cute!” “You’re a genius!” “You don’t know anything!” “Wasn’t that person awful?”).

I had unknowingly encountered Plato’s World of Form. My ability to abstract delighted my parents; they did not see that they were indoctrinating me into the prison of the mind that humans had built for themselves with the bricks of language. Of course, the bricks could also be used to construct cozy palaces, but humans could no longer stand to exist in open fields. From then I would forever be unconsciously tormented by their lack of that thing which they took away so eagerly – pure aesthetic sensation. My vocal chords strengthened as I grew older, and I gathered a sense of complacency and ownership of the world. My mental thought patterns activated the laryngeal muscles unconsciously (like people who move their lips while reading), and I felt that I really did understand that a snail was a “snail.” Of course, nobody really knows WHY a snail.

>>8864556
Both of these things are literally decided for you by the publisher.

>>8864723
YOU are literally decided for you by the publisher.