I'm 40,000 words into my first novel and wondering if it's

>I'M A WRITER YOU GUYS I WROTE 40,000 WORDS I'M WRITINNNGGGGGG
just fuck off. write your fucking shit or don't, nobody cares either way

>>8936738
;_; well, okay

>>8936734
If you're not enjoying yourself and you're seriously expecting to make money, then yes, you're almost certainly wasting your time.

>>8936734
>>8936747
What this anon said.
Depends on what you mean by wasting your time.

Write and spend time on it but do it with little to no expectations.

I write quite a bit but 3/4s of it I have no intention of ever trying to publish, and the 1/4 I do is more for the sake of sharing it with people who can give good, professional criticism/a bit to inflate my ego.

Writing for money is a good recipe for disappointment.

>>8936747
Not expecting to make money, no. But hoping that all the work will have some effect on my life, one way or the other.

OP I know a lot about this topic. Here are the strategies available to every aspiring writer, ordered by how likely they are to secure publication for your novel:

1) Study for an MFA, publishing short stories in various magazines, maintaining an online presence and friends with fellow writers while making contacts in the publishing / academic world who will sign you up even if you don't have anything finished (e.g., Emma Cline)

2. Publish short stories in magazines and use this portfolio of published material to make an agent take you seriously enough to read your manuscript (e.g. DFW)

3. Write a manuscript, send it off to as many agents as possible hoping one of them will take the time to read it from the slush pile (aka pleb pile) and take a shot with your work (e.g. Cormac McCarthy)

4. Look for independent publishers who are more lax with submissions and even consider reading manuscripts even if you have no agent and no publishing history (e.g. Atticus Lish - sort of)

5. Embrace failure and kill yourself (e.g. Me)

6. Dress like a pizza delivery driver, rent or borrow a motorcycle helmet, purchase a large pizza and ask for a spare empty box, place your manuscript in the bottom (empty) box, fake an Italian accent and enter the office of a well-known publishing house and distract the receptionist with your poor grasp of English while heading to their office, identify which desk belongs to the editor you believe might best enjoy your work, place both pizza boxes on their desk, and then hurry away hoping that your little scheme will make them perceive you as an interesting if eccentric writer obviously so ambitious and certain of his talent that they will take the time to read your work and use the story about how they became aware of it as part of their promotional campaign for it (e.g. also Me)

>>8936816

I don't know what's going to come out of such a spirit of selfishness, but if I had to guess, I'd guess I wouldn't want to read it.

Just write, OP. 40k is nothing. Keep going. If you love it, do it.

>>8937165
>40k is nothing
Well, not really. Some great things have been written in fewer, don't be a fuckwit.

>>8936855
>selfishness

wtf are you on about, jesus chist

>>8936855
I'm really not sure what gave you the impression that it's selfish. Self indulgent, maybe, but not selfish.

>>8937280

I meant in the grand scale of a writing career, you sensitive snowflake.

Post the first chapter

Then we can tell you if you're wasting your time or not

>>8936734
>'m 40,000 words into my first novel and wondering if it's worth all the time and effort I'm putting into it.

More than likely, it probably isn't. If you look at writing with a, "I put this much work into this, so I should get x out of it," you're really not looking at it in the right light.

You have to pretty comfortable with the fact that you could be completely wasting your time.

There's no guarantee that what you're writing will be good, and even if it's good there's no guarantee it will get published, and even if it gets published, there's no guarantee that it will catch on.

You're working with a very uncertain profession, if you want certainty, go become an accountant or something.

>What's your take on writing a first novel without any sort of established relationship with a publisher or presence in the literary world?

Probably best to start with short stories and work your way up, way easier to a ss published and get some cred under you belt, than just throwing a novel out there. Though...totally unknown writers with no writing creds do get book deals on their first books.

There's no real magic answer here dude.

>Am I wasting my time?

I dunno, are you?

>>8936738
Someone's jelly.

>>8937412
I'm not that stupid. You couldn't post the first chapter of anything here and not watch it get ripped to shreds by a bunch of bitter pseuds.

>>8936734
write 40 trillion words and break the world record
at least your effort won't be in vain