Writers who reject reading

I think you bring up a very good point.

Chuck said something about most of the books in his office are filled with non-fiction and history, a lot of things you wouldn't read for enjoyment. I bet a lot of writers feel the same way sometimes, trying to find the perfect way to finish the paragraph, nuking whole chapters and starting over, beating themselves over the head -- sticking microphones up their asses and jumping into a pile of broken beer bottles. GG Allen punished himself for the sake of art and being original, living a rather unhealthy lifestyle. If you keep going this route I'm afraid you just be nerfing what you love. Maybe instead of rejecting fiction, use it as a reference on [i]not[/i] what to do. I plan on never using "He said through his teeth" as an identifier after seeing so many people use it. Good luck to you. Your post alone shows that whatever you write should be interesting.

not reading other fiction authors is good in the sense that you don't get intimidated or try to imitate someone else's style, but the only way you learn to write is by reading. i always question people who say they're writers and they don't read. it makes no sense.

do whatever works for you. i can see why some people would either take time off of reading fiction, or just not read it at all. but i think the only way to be a successful writer is if you make the story your own, and develop your own style. it has nothing to do with what you read or don't read. personal success is the only thing you should attempt to achieve when writing, professional success will happen or it won't, but if you don't like doing it, and aren't happy with the results, i see no point in writing it.

I have actually considered on doing something similar, not reading and developing a literary style all to my own--- that lasted about ten seconds because I kept finding things I always wanted to read and wanted to read them right away, and so I did. In ways I sort of agree with the fact that you should be devoid of influences around you, but that is almost impossible to successfully do. I tried an experiment awhile back, I decided to unplug my radio, block-out MTV and VH1 on the TV with my remote and did this for 6months (I lead an exceptionally exciting life as you can see). Six months later I plugged my radio back in and listened to it and even through 6 months is not an enormous amount of time all the songs that were played on the radio I have heard before, they were supposedly new but I have heard them many times before, can't point out where but I heard them.

And in other ways I think it is essential for you to be influenced by both fiction and real life events. If you become a hermit living in a shack out in the woods you will nothing because there is nothing around to inspire you, you need inspiration to become a writer in some form or another.

this is just my theory so I could be wrong

Okay, I'm going to go balls-out with a couple forced analogies, so bear with me.

There's an old saying that if you get an infinite amount of monkeys at an infinite amount of typewriters forever, one of them will knock out a copy of [i]Hamlet[/i].

Pretending you aren't aware of something may seem like a way to defend yourself from plagarism, but it really works against you. Maybe someone has wrote a book like yours, but better. Maybe your book comes too close to another book you haven't even heard of. Where are you then?

I'll give another example. Say you're writing a book about something that has been done to death, like vampires. I know you're probably not writing a book about vampires, but what the hell.

There's a metric fuckload of books about vampires. There's a fuckload of movies about vampires. If you want to write about vampires and not have it come out hackneyed and cliched, you'll have to do a lot of research.

Maybe you'll have to change the rules a bit about what vampires can and can't do. Maybe you'll have to use the concept of vampirism in a novel way.

So, you think of areas you can avoid so you won't be copying someone else's work.

Maybe you end up with a vampire that doesn't want to believe that he's a vampire. He just thinks that years ago he was attacked by some deranged fuck in a cape, and rationalizes his aversion to sunlight, religious symbols and garlic. He works a night job cleaning offices until he meets a woman who figures out that he's a vampire, and is intrigued by that - but he doesn't know, or doesn't want to know about it. She gets annoyed by this and tries to get him to wear black clothing and grow his hair out. Wackiness ensues.

Okay, maybe that's not a good example, but it's something to think about.

And here's a good article that you should read, and only mentions vampires once - in passing.

[url]http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/wc3-3.html[/url]

Hmmm... you people have some interesting angles here...

"a metric fuckload" is a term i WILL be plagiarizing.

How about a vampire that suffers from an extreme case of short term memory and enherits a garlic factory from his uncle? Nevermind, sounds more like a bad SNL skit.

i agree with message7 and spike.

i think it's a little naive to think that just by avoiding reading fiction you can avoid being influenced by it, or that it will somehow speed up your ability to find your own voice.

especially if you have already been reading fiction for years. you've already been influenced. and tv, newspapers, even history books all have a literary voice that could just as easily influence your writing. you can't close your eyes to the whole world.

we have to accept anyway that everything we think or write will already have been thought or written at some point during human history. in a way, nothing's new. but by reading everything, looking at everything, we have more of a chance of being original by creating an amalgm of what already exists. like spike said in his vampire rant, look at what's out there are avoid it that way.

any of this making sense?

Really, I think the entire idea is silly. I mean, it's sound in theory, but only in theory. The [I]best[/I] way for you to get significant skill is not to avoid fiction books out of fear of subconcious plagarism, but to read as many as possible. Why? So that you understand your craft more and more. If you don't want to get inspired by things that you've read, well, tough. Everyone is, whether they want to or not. But if you voice it differently, and spin the hell out of it, it doesn't matter. It can stil be a good book/movie/whatever the hell.

Personally, I just never allow myself to come up with ideas from fiction. Every single inspiration I've had in the last month, and I've had a healthy lot, has come from real life moments. If you don't have the same happen to you, you either don't get out, or you don't pay attention. And on that note, if inspiration solely from real life isn't providing enough material, than that means that yes, you either don't get out, or aren't paying attention.

Now, if you are talking about copping grammar from fiction books subconciously and not wanting to do THAT then that just means you don't read [I]enough[/I] fiction. Think of it as adding food coloring to water. If you add only red, from these types of books, then you get a load of red water. But if you keep on drawing on different sources, blue, yellow, purple, so on and so forth, it becomes a huge amalgamation of different writing styles. And there is certainly nothing wrong with doing that, in fact, that's.. what you're supposed to do.

So really, if you want to get inspired, look to real life, not books. Simple as that. Write down scenes that you steal from real life, or moments, or characters that you know/met. You're plagarizing God, but that old fruit doesn't mind. And read more damn fiction, it only helps.

Eponymous:
Let me make a long and very boring story short: I was trained as a historian and believe me, it took me a year to break out of that. The first fiction I wrote read just like that - a narrative filled with repetitive facts building up to a conclusion... you know how those books are. Anyways, after a year f struggle, I did manage to find my voice (a voice that is more like the 'me' that you will talk to, face to face)...
And about inspiration: I agree with you. It's the world out there that gives me ideas and spurs me on. I really never have read many of the classics. I always hated literature. I wanted to ASSFUCK the idiot that wrote a book about Gatsby that I was forced to read 15 years ago. And here's the irony--- here I am doing my own thing, writing my own fiction and it's all about my experiences and my perception, just twisted and brought to the next level that is fiction. I Think you make a great point. For me, I don't believe in inspiration-- I just do what I do without any bourgeois phenomenological baggage - you'll never hear me say "oh my God- I just can't write a thing- I NEED inspiration!"... I have always thought that was a cop-out. I'm not a writer- I just write. And I've always hated literary types. Those are the guys who sometimes come to punk shows and I'm throwing elbows hahahaa...
anyways, after this long-winded rant, I think you domake an interesting point and it's high time I shut the hell up and get to work here.

Eponymous is right...

[IMG]http://members.firestarters.org/redmorfiction.jpg[/IMG]

interesting idea crud. indeed.

thing is- would a great artist never view other art for reference or inspiration. i fear, that without work of the same genre, without stimuli, we cant get..... stimulated.

I know, how cliché. I just had nothing to do at work at the moment.

You know, I'm starting to think that any kind of structuring or other design or whatever is pointless once you export it from your own creative process.

And I still refuse to read!
Hemingway or his ugly ass daughter can suck my cock... NICE!

More About Me:

Hobbies: Defecation, author of vile anti-modernity manifestoes, punk rocker, historiography, reservoirs, hermit lifestyle, anarcho-communism, revolutionary fecal crusade against infidels, watersports, female hair fetishes and cunning linguist.
Latest News: NIHILISM EMERGES FROM THE CUBICLIZED MASSES - - ALL BOW TO ED CARGANILLA.

Hemingway can suck it. Kerouac is a bourgeois bitch. Fuck literature. Our anti-faith is destroying your idols one at a time.

Favorite Personal Quote:

"Everything you know is wrong. No one you loved went to heaven. They fell into atoms and that’s that. Nothing will bring them back. Nothing. You’re selfish to want them back. They finished with the misery of this world and are now free. Let them be. They’re not running the marathon anymore. And stop praying to them. They can’t hear you. God can’t hear you. There are no pearly gates or happy endings. You die and fall into atoms. Its just that easy. Someday none of this will be here so shut your fucking mouth.
BELIEVE NOTHING AND DIE."

"Hemingway can suck it." "Hemingway or his ugly ass daughter can suck my cock... NICE!"

hey, you're treading on thin water there pal.

"I wanted to ASSFUCK the idiot that wrote a book about Gatsby that I was forced to read 15 years ago. And here's the irony"

Chuck Palahniuk's favorite book is The Great Gatsby.

I say, read more. Read everything you can get your hands on.

And Jack Kerouac was friggin brilliant.

bdw - -
you see, that's just the point. Although I think Chuck is absolutely phenomenal, I really don't care if he likes F. Scott Fitzbowelmovement. Because I don't.

I think part of my reason for writing is to begin breaking away the establishment and its standards. Nothing against you guys. I have no problem with you enjoying Kerouac, Burroughs, Ellis, Vergil or whoever. Just remember that I'm the lowlife who has to rip down everything and piss on it. Just to make sure that no one ever lumps me into the categories, I have to set the categories themselves alight.
And I do have a weakness for all things Palahniuk, and I have been irreparably influenced by him. That's something I fight every day. It's an ongoing battle not to write "Fight Club: The Sequel" or some shit like that. That's why I have given away my Palahniuk books. Because I need to get as far away from them as I can to be sure I do things my own damned way.

Odd that you guys are more offended at my slagging down literary figures, but not at my fetish for girl urine and hairy muff.
NICE!!!!!!!!!

hey, i like hairy muff as much as the next guy. muff it up!

so lowlife, if you're so against literature, why are you writing to write and sell it yourself?
"Just remember that I'm the lowlife who has to rip down everything and piss on it. Just to make sure that no one ever lumps me into the categories, I have to set the categories themselves alight."
this statement disturbs me just as much as "i have to be the best christian/muslim/(insert any faith in here) i can be so that no one thinks i'm a sinner"
seriously, relax, and enjoy life, don't go through it like you're proving something to everyone.

Hairy vagina fetish is one thing, busting on Kerouac will get you tar and feathered.

heh heh heh - thanks fellas!
Wyre - I think it's because my whole life has been a long, protracted battle against authority- that's why I'm trying to break down the literary world while at the same time dreaming of quitting my job...
Long live the GG Allin school of literary destruction! hahaaa
I don't have anything really to prove, just the need to break things down and take back literature, the arts, government, music, etc. from the established elites. You know, I'm the Martin Luther/GG Allin figure bringing it all back to the people... and yeah, plenty of feminine fur along the way too!!!!
OK - back to work- have a good one.
Ian

[QUOTE]Hemingway can suck it. Kerouac is a bourgeois bitch. Fuck literature. Our anti-faith is destroying your idols one at a time. [/QUOTE]

no, YOU die.

just fucking die.

you fucking worship the ideals of fight club, you obviously admire chuck palahniuk...wtf do you think hemingway represented in his day and age? WTF is WRONG with you?? you probably just think saying things like "fuck hemingway" and "kerouac is bourgeois" make you sound "punk" and "hardcore" and "cool". FUCK YOU. don't denigrate the people who had more talent in their fucking diarrhea than you have in your entire pimply little body just because you think it'll pump up your "image". have you even READ the works you're criticizing? i highly, highly doubt it.

get a grip. you wouldn't even have the words to say what you just did, you wouldn't even speak english as you know it, you wouldn't have even come about the fucking values and beliefs you think are so original if it weren't for writers like hemingway and kerouac. YOU FUCKING SUCK.

[QUOTE]wtf do you think hemingway represented in his day and age?[/QUOTE]
in his day and age, Hemingway was a god, in the tyler durden sense of god.
in this day and age, Hemingway is a legend. what you(lowlife) think of him will not change how the rest of the world thinks of him. you alone cannot change anyone's perception, you'll just be lumped into another stereotype, you'll just be another statistic in everyone else's mind. you want to change how people percieve you, you want to show authority how you are better than they?
try being a kind person, and acting like a human being. you'll get a whole lot more accomplished that way.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by insomnomaniac [/i]
[B]no, YOU die.

just fucking die.

[/B][/QUOTE]

omg, Pixies?

I was talking to Kim.

I said You Fucking Die!

[QUOTE]
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by insomnomaniac
no, YOU die.

just fucking die.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

omg, Pixies?
[/QUOTE]

that wasn't an intentional quote, but me lovveee the pixies.

AHA!!
Well, I did get a kick out of that response insomnom. but I have to disagree.
The real point is to see beyond all that. I've read Hemingway and it's not all that great. Not great the way they build it up to be. And it's not about him personally. Maybe he was worthwhile when he was around. Maybe at that time it was relevant. However, today it is part of CANON, and that needs to be looked at. Anything that is CANON whether literary, religious or what have you is the enemy in my mind. So I'll compromise and say that Hemingway once was part of the Real Literary Underground, but now has been mainstreamed and made CANON LAW and all the parrots will serenade you with shrill cries when you start to revaluate this hero worship and slavish dogmatism.
And although I didn't even mention Fight Club, that fits in here as well. I love Chuck's works. But I have given them away because I need to kill them in myself before I can do my own thing the way I want to. As I write this, Fight Club is dead and the Real Underground is someone unknown churning out something new and extreme. That's the nature of what I'm saying. And as far as rock and roll genres go (you mentioned punk, hardcore, etc.) let me say that the Real Rock and Roll Underground died 10 years ago this month with the poet laureate Kevin Jesus Christ Allin. The music has been taken from us just like literature has been and we're involved in a fight to the death with the Establishments (I say plural because there are many). And yes, were my work to be published and successful, I too would need to be banished because at that point I would stop struggling.
ANyways, I'm babbling on and it's probably making less and less sense as I go....
Oh - yeah- you die too, my friend!
hahahahahaaaaaaa

--Ian

Well, actually, Believe nothing and die

well lowlife, good louck on creating something "new and extreme". you'll need it.
as for me, "extreme" isn't necessarily a good thing. people have felt that they have to keep pushing and pushing the line to become the new "cool" the new "famous". i'm sick of it, what's next for music? it already contains the epitome of extreme. everyone is the new antichrist, everyone has added 10 extra cuss words, everyone is already showing anything that is shocking/sexual. the same is happening in the literary world. don't get me wrong, i like to listen to marilyn manson on occasion, i like to read the occasional serial killer book as well, but some of this new stuff, dear god, it's practically devoid of a plot, of anything that should be considered "literary". so lowlife, do you really feel that you [I]have to[/I] create something "new and extreme"?

Wyre,
I don't think that it has necessarily to fall into what you would call "new and extreme"... in fact, extreme/mild/funny/nice/stupid and so forth are just valuations. I'm trying to communicate the idea of breaking down the walls. Not thinking outside the box- kicking the box to bits and burning the scraps and splinters, ya know? And as for Marilyn Manson, let me say- I would love ten minutes alone in a room with that fuckhead. He is making MILLIONS off the kind of things GG did without any reward. He is all talk, no walk. I hate him. He is the problem. With idiots like that out there the Real Rock and Roll Underground needs to resume the attack. To quote GG, "..not the major-label bullshit- it's not Lollapolooza - - we need to DROP BOMBS on those motherfuckers...we need to kill them and we need to kill them NOW."
Before I get off on a tangent, let me clarify this point: you seem dubious of the goal of approximating anything in the neighborhood of originality. I do not claim that absolute originality is possible: quite the opposite. However, we can track down and eliminate those things that will push us toward borrowing. So although none of us will ever break totally free of the curse of derivation, we can sure as hell try.
Again I'm rambling because I'm at work and the fucking phone keeps ringing and idiots are bugging me and all this shit....
ok- talk to you later bro.
Ian

"I'm trying to communicate the idea of breaking down the walls. Not thinking outside the box- kicking the box to bits and burning the scraps and splinters, ya know?"

don't you think that's what i mentioned above is all about? that is exactly what certain people claim they're trying to do. you can be very original, but being "extreme" is completely different. what i said still stands in reference to you.

i was gonna reply, but trypd said pretty much everything i have to say.

And each bit of derision only feeds into what I was saying. But I'm not complaining. It's good to get differing opinions.
The more you two slag down what I'm saying, the more convinced of its inherent rightness I become. Oh wait- I'm not into words like "right", "wrong" etc... let me just say that I become even more convinced about my crazy-ass notions. Believe nothing, follow no one, immolate yourself and know East Timor. Believe Nothing and Die.

Then check this link out

[url]http://www.mctrachiotomy.com/murderjunkies.html[/url]

LowLife, which corporation do you work for?

i'm just wondering, why do you always say "Believe Nothing and Die", because it seems to me you believe in a lot, it's just not what the average person believes in.
you should think about changing that to "i think you should believe nothing and die, but it's not like i do that myself".
i guess what i'm saying is if you practiced what you preach, i might take you seriously.

Well, Wyre, we're all just a few matchheads away from immolation, aren't we??
And who knows what to believe and what not to. I don;t even know if I accept epistemology and phenomenology either. That's why I say BELIEVE NOTHING AND DIE. Because there's nothing concrete about belief, like many things that people stake so much on.
Maybe you could say I believe in the Real Rock and Roll Underground. And in the Martyr GG Allin who sacrificed himself so that punk rock could again be ours.. but he died in 1993 and I believe Green Day became famous around 95. So what does that say about it all then?

I think the most important lesson I have learned is that contrary to the codifiers, I don;t really want everything to match up and to be coherent. And I really don't want anyone's approval or acceptance. As long as I dig what I'm doing, it's all good.
Anyways, I gotta run.. you guys have a good night.

bdw - I work for a mortgage company and it's not very pleasant, I'm afraid.

HAIL FECES.

Oh wait--- Hail NOTHING!

gg allin? you mean the sociopathic singer who wanted to commit suicide onstage? the one who's spent many many years in jail for various reasons, and made it a ritual of shoving things up his ass onstage?
now i'm really beginning to question your mental state lowlife. i don't care about the "real rock and roll underground", or about anal insertions. he was a singer, and from what i understand, not necessarily a good one at that. what i said above about "extremes" definately applies here. heck, the guy thought he created elvis, he thought he was god. sorry lowlife, if you feel vindicated in the things i say, enjoy it, because you'll end up just like gg allin, dead and forgotten.
besides, the guy is not a martyr, he died on a drug overdose, martyrdom is qualified by suffering death rather than renouncing religious beliefs, or someone who sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause or principle. the guy just shot up one time too many.

He abused and destroyed himself so that the Real Rock and Roll Underground could emerge.
GG was the prophet of a brand of nihilism that most of us will never reach. I have not reached it yet. Let me put it into Palahniukesque terminology - - self destruction is the answer. To use your own body as a vessel for aggressive force and destructive energy, to spend the only life you are given breaking yourself down and ruining everything and everyone around you... to burn the goddamned box- that is the mission of the radical. If you're pissed about my slagging Hemingway, you better appreciate GG because that's Hemingway to the 100th power. You might not be able to see past things like shoving a microphone up one's ass, but I'm telling you there's a lot more to it than that. As a literary type you should know to look a little deeper. Long before Tyler Durden made it onto a page, there was GG.
Anyways, GG is not only a martyr for Rock and Roll. He is a martyr for anyone who has ever wanted to do things their own way-- he cleared the way for us. He destroyed so many boundaries and made it possible for us to do what we do. For someone somewhere to reject the Establishment. To fight the System.

so when will you be happy? once everything is broken down, building toppled, people living like savages once again? or are you just about taking a dump onstage? gg allin does not even begin to measure up to hemingway. hemingway sought to improve, to sustain, not to destroy or defecate. hemingway was about interpersonal relationships, he was about seeing the world how it is, and taking it in for what it's worth. gg allin is about destroying anything and everything. i'm not pissed about you saying anything against hemingway, i'm questioning your whole belief system.
let's say we "take down the system" and destroy anything "the man" has made. what then? no heating, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, hunt your own food, hunt one another for territory, digress to the bronze age, digress to the stone age, leave behind everything man has accomplished in man's existance. what are you left with? fear of becoming some beast's dinner, fear of surviving the winter exposed to the elements.
that's irrational.

"Irrational" is something you've been taught.
It's time to unlearn, buddy.

lol, irrational is something you could use some learning on. rational would be a better start for you actually. rational and sane. let the lessons begin.

I just reminded myself of some great poetry - this is really touching in that prison sort of way. Here is the receipt of your shit-ass modernity - here is my borrowed shout of anger at every authority sand every establishment everywhere- - - to them I say BITE IT YOU SCUM

**********************************************

Well you want me to kiss your ass
Well bend over, buddy, here comes my foot
I don't need your cry ass shit
Temper's rising, take a fit

Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum - Here I come
Bite it you scum

Well you want me to contribute
All I got is blood for you
All you want is more and more
Gluttony, you pig you whore

Bite it you scum - Here I come
Bite it you scum - I want your cum
Bite it you scum -
Bite it you scum

One day when your end is near
I'll be laughing at your fear
When you're gone there'll be no one
Who'll be fucking up my fun - No one

Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum - Here I come
Bite it you scum - I'm never gonna run
Bite it you scum

Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum - Here I come
Bite it you scum
Bite it you scum
Bite it, bite it, bite it, bite it
Bite it, bite it, bite it, bite it
Bite it, bite it, bite it you fucking scum
Bite it you scum fucking sucking whore

To you, wyre, I say Believe Nothing and Defecate!
hahaaaaa- ok- back to work bro- catch you later.

enjoy work.
i'm going to consider this thread dead and shot. it is going no where past this point, at least concerning me, because what i said still stands, and there's nothing that will change my stance. so like an intelligent sane being, i'm letting it take it's leave.

wow, what a thrilling, touching poem. definitely beats the shit out of whitman...*rolls eyes*

just for shits and giggles...

[img]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/avatar.php?userid=2555&dateline=1054576079[/img]:Fuck whitman, he never once took a dump during one of his poetry reading sessions, and i bet he never shoved a drum stick up his ass...
because that's what needs to happen, more poets taking a shot at the president...

Now, Insom., my dear, that represents the clarion call to arms - the definitive and penultimate departure from that thing they call normalcy, from that way of life they consider 'right', from everything that has held people down since we crawled the fuck outta the primordial bowel matter---
"BITE IT YOU SCUM" is not to be compared to leaves of ass, grass or gas because nobody rides for free. This is that moment you dream of. The Johnny Paycheck moment where everyone around you knows exactly where they can stick their silly bullshit.
GG was the prophet and we're going to take literature back, even if only to rip it down and piss on it.
OK- back to work- I really mean it this time- you have a good one!