Does every writer, including ones who are now renowned as ma

>>9944266
Apparently Shakespeare wrote the original version of Hamlet, dubbed Ur-Hamlet by scholars, for a homework assignment when he was in the equivalent of middle school. Joyce's first complete short story, which he penned just shy of his sixteenth birthday, was the skeleton of what would eventually become the first second of "A Portrait." Even duller luminaries of the literary night sky like Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen published their first novels before they were twenty. So no, all greats start off great, were always great. If you don't have it now, unfortunately, you are not likely ever to acquire it.

>>9944266

What a stupid question. Of course they do.

>>9944295
What about the fact that Tolstoy wrote large portions of War and Peace before he had finished high school? Do historical examples hold no weight for you whatsoever?

Writing is one of the art forms were genius people just find themselves writing things that will haunt people forever, not having any training.

>Joyce
>Yeats
>Nabokov
>Keats
>Dickinson
etc.

Most people probably train to get good though.

>>9944295
What makes you so confident in saying that?

>>9944316
Define "training".

>>9944302
Probably he was shit before that.

>>9944266
His second one's pretty alright though ("A drowning incident"), published around the same time.

>>9944285
Basically what you are saying is that two writers used ideas they had at a young age and made them better when they were older and two writers published novels at a young age.

And then you conflate having ideas when someone was young and publishing two novels at a young age as the concrete evidence that someone is simply born with it.

LMFAO at your deduction abilities.

>>9944318

Because anyone who starts something will suck at the beginning.

>>9944302

Okay there may be prodigies like any art form but who's to say they didn't have moment of shit in private either?

>>9944320
Clearly he means they did not take MFA degrees, anon.

>>9944330
But you think those writers, possibly with the exception of Dickinson, never had any sort of mentor or teacher to guide their craft?

>>9944320
Replace it with trying. Joyce didn't "try" to write a day in his life.

>>9944339
Can you expand on this?

>>9944332
If you need someone to guide your craft you're unfit to sail to deeper waters. You'll sink or capsize or lose your way. You'll get shark eaten, drown, or die of thirst.

Only a prodigious few ever write anything worth reading. And they certainly didn't need guidance.

>>9944344
Have you ever heard of Ezra Pound you fucking dolt?

>>9944349
Are you retarded? Why do you think they called him Loomis Lonebody? Dude took advice from no one. What he forged he forged solitarily in the smithy of his soul, like all great literary geniuses.

It must be lonely for them, all the way up there, looking down on us, scurrying around like ants, squabbling pettily over trivia, while through their mythy minds flow forms and pulse pure poetry, incessantly, as it has been for them essentially since they first drew breath.

>>9944354
Would you like me to list the amount of literary geniuses he helped and guided with their crafts, explicitly and specifically critiquing their craft?

>>9944356
You're fighting a losing battle. I can see by your misuse of "amount" that you are hoping that one day you too, a fledgling novelist perhaps, will be taken under the wing of some great mentor, a man of talent and vision, who will help you to draw from your presently mute throat a timorous warble, followed by a whole symphony of sound. A guide who will teach you to fly, to soar above all the world, away from your peers who told you you'd never quite make it, sunward, close as mere mortals can get to heaven.

But alas, we all must face up to the facts eventually. We all must come to terms with the truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be, no matter how inharmonious with our deepest wishes and desires. And the facts in this case are that great artists are born, not made. And there is no making but self-making that helps the true artist along his way.

>>9944366
m8...

>>9944368
I'm just having a goof. Everything I posted in this thread was either overstatement or outright fabrication. I made that stuff up about Joyce and Shakespeare and Franzen and Atwood and Tolstoy. Also I definitely think most writers start of writing terribly, and that mentors can probably help a lot.
Sometimes a guy likes to entertain himself by spewing some nonsense.

File: 692.gif (486KB, 238x155px) Image search: [Google]

486KB, 238x155px

>>9944379
Valuable lesson learned, I guess?

Borges' early stuff was quite bad

>>9944384
No lesson, just killing time. And it's not terrible writing practice.

>>9944387
Fair enough. I'm procrastinating too. Should be marking papers but here the fuck we are. Not that other anon, btw. Just came into this thread looking for an excuse to post Lucille.

>>9944390
What are you marking papers for anon?

>>9944391
Undergrad psych.

>>9944379
fuck off

>>9944316
I would argue that Nabokov's first Mary is mediocre at best. But The Defense, which I believe comes second, is solid.
It is weirdly heartening to audit an author's development from shit to greatness, on the other hand.

>>9944316
Might want to add Pynchon to that list.
I mean V. at 26 or 24? Absolutely incredible....

>>9944266
All start off shit? No, certainly not. But most do start with average, not particularly impressive works.