THE AGE OF DECAYED FUTURITY

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

I got my first thing published in 1986 when I was 38 and have been doing odd literary jobs since them. I first met Mark around that time. Not sure how he’s changed in recent years. Anyway, I remain happy, happy, happy with my own literary life since then.

36 here.

Generally speaking, my life as someone who writes is part of a wider network of activities. I love writing, but it doesn't exhaust who I am as a person. I work full-time and I have obligations to family and friends. A lifestyle which includes only writing is, I believe, unsustainable as well as irresponsible. The trick is to integrate writing within one's life as a mature adult.

I pay the rent so I can write short stories; I don't write short stories so I can pay the rent. The latter option is naive and foolish. Oddly enough, too many artists fall into this trap, thinking they can make a living through writing alone.

[Ibrahim]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous I got my first thing published in 1986 when I was 38 and have been doing odd literary jobs since them. I first met Mark around that time. Not sure how he’s changed in recent years. Anyway, I remain happy, happy, happy with my own literary life since then. 36 here. Generally speaking, my life as someone who writes is part of a wider network of activities. I love writing, but it doesn't exhaust who I am as a person. I work full-time and I have obligations to family and friends. A lifestyle which includes only writing is, I believe, unsustainable as well as irresponsible. The trick is to integrate writing within one's life as a mature adult. I pay the rent so I can write short stories; I don't write short stories so I can pay the rent. The latter option is naive and foolish. Oddly enough, too many artists fall into this trap, thinking they can make a living through writing alone.

There are levels of naivete and foolishness. While it is certainly commendable to strike a balance between the necessities of daily life and any artistic pursuit, neither of the two is objectively more responsible.
There is an egoism in contributing to the treadmill of this diseased society to feed your family just as there is an egoism in stepping away from that treadmill to pursue something that 'feels' equally fundamental to your being. On the other hand, if you provide something to an audience, it would be just as irresponsible to give them less of that, in favour of other responsibilities 'closer to home'?

To those who profess a faith, there are things still more important than these considerations, but i'll not go into that here; perhaps only briefly, to say that no-one is required to make a living, through writing or otherwise.
Hunger is a very real thing, but there is nothing which objectively compels us to 'make a living.'

Though i'm no writer, i will admit that one positive thing about not being dependent on payment coming from writing ( or any type of artistic pursuit ) is that it will likely keep one from repeating oneself, artistically; you're less likely to come up with variations of your 'brand' for purely commercial reasons.

[In A Dark Light]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

I got my first thing published in 1986 when I was 38 and have been doing odd literary jobs since then. I first met Mark around that time. Not sure how he’s changed in recent years. Anyway, I remain happy, happy, happy with my own literary life since then.

I was 26 when I had my first short story published; 24 when I had my first poem published. Of course, I'm only 27 now so all I've managed is a handful of short stories in small press zines, usually only in exchange for a token payment.

However, I'm under absolutely no illusions that I shall ever be paid real money for anything I write. I write because it is important to me to do so, because I enjoy seeing how, or even if, I can transfer the thoughts in my head into readable prose. Whenever I get something published it's merely a bonus, with the stories that don't get published - in some cases due to my not wishing to submit them in the first place - tending to disappear into my computers hard-drive, with a few resurrected simply to be posted on TLO.

Justin talks a lot of good sense in his post, however. I've been doing this for around ten years now, and even though I'm still nowhere near where I might like to be in terms of ability, I'm considerably more able than when I first started out; when I even struggled with the basics of grammar. I'm only too well aware that I need to cultivate the ability to finish everything I set out to write, as he notes at the end of his post. But, even were I never to have another story published ever again, I would like to continue writing for my own sake.
Here, perhaps, is where I would make a delineation between a 'writer' and an 'author'. In my view you're a 'writer' if you're someone who is writing every day, but you're not an 'author' until you're regularly having your writing published.

Just my personal thoughts on the matter, as I'm absolutely not getting involved in any sort of argument or seeking to take any sides.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Evans]

As for bullying in the weird fiction, the community is rife with petty partisan nastiness. There is nothing grand or high or visionary here - only the low malice of giggling American atheists and the perpetual virtue signalling aggression of culture warriors. Everything one says risks being filtered through conditioned political categories. It saddens me that Mark has become a bitter, low individual animated by political animosity just as so many of this enemies are.

Quote Originally Posted by James

The standards being applied to my behaviour are standards totally ignored when it comes to whom you're leaping to defend, which is really more important than getting bogged down in definitions of distributism. I want Mark Samuels to stop bullying people, and I don't think the bullied people become just as bad or worse for expressing their annoyance. Sorry, but it's frustrating and dispiriting seeing who you guys always see fit to attack and defend in these situations. Boys' club nonsense, in my view.

A. No one ever said your behavior was as bad as Mark's. It's quite obviousness that Mark isn't even engaging in an argument as much as just trolling people he dislikes when the mood takes him. His recent stuff in the music thread is almost vulgar enough to warrant a green card. Why he hasn't been banned is beyond me really - popular author privilege I assume.

B. In the recent threads I have commented on Mark's antics both publicly and privately. Now of course for people who are or were in contact with him will try to resolve this privately (by telling him he's out of order acting in this way), rather than posting about it openly.

C. Your attempting to link his bullying behavior towards you with some extremist political position is wrong though (at least unless he's radically changed in the last year). Mark is corrected in saying that people have constantly misrepresented and attacked him of the basis political views he's never held, solely because he has done something which annoyed them. In this community such actions are equivalent to shouting 'Fire' in a crowded theater. So many Leftists in this community will stampede and crush one another in order to be the first to demonstrate their virtue by striking a blow at some invisible enemy.

[njhorror]

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." - Oscar Wilde

[Frater_Tsalal]

To quote a line from Fraiser: "Okay, then. The three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this."

One area where I disagree with Justin though is that I'm not sure one wants to be too prolific. Mainly because I think that if an author has too many books that some of those books then lose their individuality... or maybe I should say that sometimes the gold is obscured by all the dross (Stephen King pops into mind here). And I can think of many very good writers who have fairly small bibliographies: William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, Thomas Harris, Carson McCullers, are just a few names that I'm thinking of right now.

Sadly, he's spot-on right about the "health getting worse as we age" factor, which has been one of my main stumbling blocks in recent years...