ten (plus) reasons not to be a writer

can't find a pen

don't know any languages

you have a really dumb name and are bad at thinking of pen names

There is a cobra on your desk

The house has been infested with cobras for months

When you finally spot a pen, it's near the hood of a sleeping cobra

You sit there looking at the pen, or looking at the cobra, you're not sure which, and you ask yourself, if you weren't so bad at coming up with names, would you name the cobra?

The memories of the dead are too tough to confront

pen, that would be a good name for the sleeping cobra. You say pen, but cough, penk, you've named the cobra penk

^^^this guy's a decent writer. can we collect all of these in one place? Ethical issues in journalism

really, really regret my horrible follow-up post to that one, possibly more than any other post I've written. and there's competition.

is that your reason?

should be but bullheaded ignorance has won the day

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writing is not very important, really

inability to make a living is really the #1 reason -- lots of jobs give you bad backs and leave you lonely and depressed

tbf i am a 'writer' albeit not of novels

pretty much all the options apply, although bookshops are n/a and 'nothing to show for wasting your life' is somewhat heightened

also fuck you matt hague

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/61/6151/6JAG100Z/posters/james-thurber-i-m-so-glad-you-re-a-writer-i-m-just-full-of-themes-and-ideas-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg

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should have realized, 'different and fascinating reason not to be a writer' should have gone, 'let me write it out for you'

Did anyone else here study creative writing?

I done a summer course at St. Martin's one year. It was really fulfilling. Nothing formal though.

I cnat spel

1 there's no way to make a living at it unless you get connected to awful ppl or lucky
2 even allowing for that you'd probably have to write utter dreck to do well

3 heartbreakingly, im not sure my dreck would be up to scratch ;_;

I dunno about dreck, exciting plots and so on are a much-undervalued part of fancy literature de nos jours imo. I don't see why crap plot + literary pretensions should be any less dreck than exciting story + terrible prose, for example.

Oh i agree, dreck either way i mean

most of my heroes don't appear in no plot

Ugh double neg ur off the list

I took maybe four or five writing courses in college plus one or two outside workshops, so I guess I was considering it at one point.

Did anyone else here study creative writing?

I took an elective "creative writing" class in high school, but I can't say it took.

Later, after bouncing my way through three traditional colleges in under three years, I landed at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where I was permitted to shape my own curriculum, as long as I could find a faculty member willing to supervise me. My interest was writing, but instead of "creative writing", I shaped my studies more broadly to encompass all kinds of writing. Basically, I studied rhetoric, in the classical sense of the term.

I did a degree in it; I don't think I ever learned anything from it.

Do you still do it?

I've not written any fiction in two years now, no. I do have a short story collection coming out soon though.

Loneliness. I always thought I was a lone wolf type, but I've come to realise that I'm not quite as comfortable in just my own company as I thought I was. I do need a bit of interaction to be able to get by properly, and spending weeks-on-end self-starting over a manuscript would be really hard.

this is the attraction of it for me. london's overcrowding makes me long for solitude more and more.