🚀 Want to WRITE better? Join my free writing school: www.skool.com/writeconscious 📚 Book club, daily podcasts, and my writing: writeconscious.substack.com 📖 Read my guide to Haruki Murakami here (free): writeconscious.ck.page/30d93ddf11 Insta: instagram.com/writeconscious 🤔My Favorite Haruki Murakami novel amzn.to/4eyPr14 📕My Best Books of All-Time List: writeconscious.ck.page/355619345e 🔥Want to READ my wife’s fire poetry? Go here: marigoldeclipse.substack.co
I find that the weight of life is what enhances writing. It is what allows the writing to connect with people. Without that weight on your shoulders it is hollow and teaches nothing to anyone and does not nurture. The weight on your shoulders is what gives the work “oomph”. Fire. Guts. If writing is not an act of defiance in some way it is just ink. I have never entertained quitting. I have simply been juggling, pouring effort into other things. Art. Music. Work. Love. Family. Exercise. Cooking. Rent. Friends. They are all apart of the picture. I think it is important to be well rounded. And so it is less juggling and more feeding myself and my experience as much as I can. The weight of life is essential.
I agree. My god the pressure each and every one of us is under in our daily lives. Don’t dismiss it! The same pressure that causes people to crack and have affairs or beat their kids or act stupid in road rage incidents… use that pressure to force that story out of you. Look around. You can see this beautiful mess we are all in. Speak about it. Tell the truth.
Some writers go straight into writing without doing some meaningless jobs first and experiencing all the nothing life has to offer. Like politicians who go from university straight into politics without experiencing the real world. Both professions need the mulch of life to draw from. You have to experience the vast meaninglessness of life then rebuild your world from nothing. And if that rebuilding appears as the by-product of a book, or something completely different, great! And there are a lot of career artists and writers who are more like politicians, scamming grants, writing about writing, the focus is the book, the thing, not life. These works are lifeless, you can smell it. These things often win awards but rarely bring its readers back to life.
@@nedyalkobalkanov2844 i made art for art sake for 30 years with zero audience (i'm now 48), art and words for just myself... until the last few years i found 160k people across Instagram and TT who got me. you can make art not for art sake if you'd like, even for one's ass :)
The morning after I listened to this, I woke and my soul started reciting "vitality, determination, solar energy, faith, strength, put yourself out there, become someone, courage, grit." I had been avoiding your channel content because it rubs my face in the stinky fact that I have not fully embraced who I am or what I want. You have a gift for motivating writers in ways that others are afraid to."
I can confirm much of this, to a point that likely is what you meant. I recently finished the sixth draft of a 120,000 word sequel to a part one my readers really liked. That book went through 22 versions before I released it. Definitely there was a purpose behind all of that punishment. But I don't think the purpose has to be to transform people, unless we are calling entertainment transformation. I'm not sure that entertainment is necessarily transformational, but the drive to entertain can be just as compelling as the drive to transform. In all things, my catalogue of 50+ books has been driven by many purposes. The most important is "karma yoga," simply letting the work go without any particular expectation for what it has to do or be. That approach has served me well, but in a world where there is clearly no free will, I claim no responsibility for having landed on the principle. It just appeared, made sense and has served my writing life very well ever since.
Great video. If you’ve never read John Gardener’s “On Becoming a Novelist” I think you might like it. His take on putting the focus on the art, first and foremost, reminds me a lot of you and has been very inspirational for me.
Thank you so much for posting so often! I just eat stuff like this up, although I'm not as well read as probably most of your listeners, I am trying to get back into it. I read so much as a teen but stopped pretty much after that. But anyway, thank you!!!
10:07 Octavia Butler didn’t have kids or a family. Toni Morrison had kids and a husband, but she and her husband divorced years before she started writing. So she did have to balance kids and her career with writing, but not the maintenance of a relationship. Also, she was working as an editor at Random House… which is not exactly in opposition to success in a writing career. I agree with the larger points you’re making, though they’re truer of Stephen King (or most female authors) than of either of the above examples.
It is hard to continue writing after finishing a trilogy that nobody wants to read... its like shouting in the woods and hearing only silence in response...
I always remind myself that EL James remains one of the most "successful" authors of the modern era, and it sure as hell wasn't down to her writing talent. Don't quit writing because you erred in your marketing.
If nobody wanted to read book 1, why’d you write 2 more? I joke. It all boils down to what are you writing for. If you can simply quit, it must not be much of a passion for you. There’s dozens of reasons why nobody wants to read your trilogy. Could have little or nothing to do with your abilities as a writer.
I've always been a creative type, writing, painting, fashion design, dance, music, poetry etc... I tried to make businesses out of my talents understanding people would pay for what they themselves cannot do. But although I pushed through building sites and learning profit margins, manufacturer ingredients, marketing etc I HATED the hustle...feeling like I had to spend my life on social posting pictures and videos and promoting myself....although passionate it felt so...eek. How does a creative type look past that. I've started stories before...I write poetry when I "feel" it but this book is a creative exploration of self and writing and idk where it's going outside it being a project for myself...I'm not even done with the first draft...I find when my drive is too much in the future I set myself up for failure. Than I donr finish and think, there we go another project unfinished...I'm also a stay at home homeschool mom of 4 so I do often find I have barriers...this week I haven't had anytime to write and was hoping to today but yet here we are having to do laundry.
Just start watching your videos, love the ideas being spread on here. I've recently noticed that people who actually read make higher quality youtube videos. who would've thought?
Ian, i was thinking about writing this sentence: "if you read the first 500 pages of THE LONELINESS OF ASTRONAUTS (AKA: TSINGTAO BLUES Year of the Snake) you would want to be my agent.." but then I decided that sounded too needy.. so i decided against it.. : (
Just a suggestion... Can you take a deep breath every now and then and pause? I'm zoning out after a few minutes, and I have no problem watching a two hour video.
I’ll tell you why I’m NOT quitting: because I know for a fact I am a far better writer than the big names doing it today. Sure, may be my ego talking, but I CANNOT stomach to read modern novels. It’s shit. It’s all shit.
You do realize every great writer did it for the money and fame. This idea of saying do it cause you love it is loser talk and it’s why people who do write today suck. You find what you’re amazing at and find out how to capitalize on it. Things that you love should be hobbies nothing more.
I write because I believe I have something to share with the world. I'm very imaginative, a "deep thinker" and in tune with the emotions. 2 novel lenght pieces of garbage written but I don't give up. The thing I am writing now is a lot better than the first two uhm learning experiences. My short stories and my poems are in my cookie jar. Yes, I have a big cookie jar full of pieces of paper with many words written.😅 So, I am improving and improving until I become good enough to proudly send my stories to the world. I have hundreds of thousands of words written. I heard you need a million until you are good. Well, I will try writing something good before I reach the mark. Thanks for the encouragement. I will now write.
This is a dumb take by Murakami. Intelligence is not a matter of how fast you can think, but about the quality of your thinking. There are multiple kinds of intelligence. Most hard-scientist cannot write a brilliant novel not because they are too intelligent, but because they lack the kind of intelligence to write a great story, and i think they quit writing for this reason, not because they are able to think too quickly
The idea of multiple intelligences has been largely debunked. Cognitive ability, or the ability to handle abstractions of all kinds, correlates most closely with IQ. What I think Murikami was describing is actually more attributable to personality differences, and personal preference rather than purely differences in the pop psychology notion of"intelligence"
@@Street_whys Murakami clearly says that if you think too quickly You cannot be a long-time novelist, equating that to being too intelligent.He wasn't referring to personality or character( it would have been a better argument), but brute thinking abilities. He even suggest that he may not be too smart, as a support to his point! More over, he makes the mistake of joining Intelligence with Knowledge. From the "human Intelligence" wiki page: "There are conflicting ideas about how intelligence should be conceptualized and measured. In psychometrics, human intelligence is commonly assessed by intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, although the validity of these tests is disputed. Several subcategories of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence and social intelligence, have been proposed, and there remains significant debate as to whether these represent distinct forms of intelligence.". In other words, you are thinking to narrowly about intelligence. An example: A professional team sport player must be highly intelligent to compete at the highest levels, because his tasks includes tactical reasoning, deep in-game intuition and creativity, an insane level of mind-body coordination, fast learning, the social reading needed to be in a team and the iron emotional stability you need to endure the dullness of training, between many other characteristics. All these are features of Intelligence. And yet He may score average on the IQ tests because they are are not designed to measure Intelligence in an holistic manner, but just one of its niches. Thei are biased
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🚀 Want to WRITE better? Join my free writing school: www.skool.com/writeconscious
📚 Book club, daily podcasts, and my writing: writeconscious.substack.com
📖 Read my guide to Haruki Murakami here (free): writeconscious.ck.page/30d93ddf11
Insta: instagram.com/writeconscious
🤔My Favorite Haruki Murakami novel amzn.to/4eyPr14
📕My Best Books of All-Time List: writeconscious.ck.page/355619345e
🔥Want to READ my wife’s fire poetry? Go here: marigoldeclipse.substack.co
I just got my first submission for a short story accepted and I'd like to thank you for motivating me and for the technical advice
I find that the weight of life is what enhances writing. It is what allows the writing to connect with people. Without that weight on your shoulders it is hollow and teaches nothing to anyone and does
not nurture. The weight on your shoulders is what gives the work “oomph”. Fire. Guts. If writing is not an act of defiance in some way it is just ink. I have never entertained quitting. I have simply been juggling, pouring effort into other things. Art. Music. Work. Love. Family. Exercise. Cooking. Rent. Friends. They are all apart of the picture. I think it is important to be well rounded. And so it is less juggling and more feeding myself and my experience as much as I can. The weight of life is essential.
I agree. My god the pressure each and every one of us is under in our daily lives. Don’t dismiss it! The same pressure that causes people to crack and have affairs or beat their kids or act stupid in road rage incidents… use that pressure to force that story out of you. Look around. You can see this beautiful mess we are all in. Speak about it. Tell the truth.
One of your best videos in my opinion, very important subject.
Excellent video. You've been pumping out great content left and right.
Some writers go straight into writing without doing some meaningless jobs first and experiencing all the nothing life has to offer. Like politicians who go from university straight into politics without experiencing the real world. Both professions need the mulch of life to draw from. You have to experience the vast meaninglessness of life then rebuild your world from nothing. And if that rebuilding appears as the by-product of a book, or something completely different, great! And there are a lot of career artists and writers who are more like politicians, scamming grants, writing about writing, the focus is the book, the thing, not life. These works are lifeless, you can smell it. These things often win awards but rarely bring its readers back to life.
Well said.
"Art for art's sake" - my ass.
@@nedyalkobalkanov2844 i made art for art sake for 30 years with zero audience (i'm now 48), art and words for just myself... until the last few years i found 160k people across Instagram and TT who got me. you can make art not for art sake if you'd like, even for one's ass :)
excellent point Darby
The morning after I listened to this, I woke and my soul started reciting "vitality, determination, solar energy, faith, strength, put yourself out there, become someone, courage, grit." I had been avoiding your channel content because it rubs my face in the stinky fact that I have not fully embraced who I am or what I want. You have a gift for motivating writers in ways that others are afraid to."
I can confirm much of this, to a point that likely is what you meant.
I recently finished the sixth draft of a 120,000 word sequel to a part one my readers really liked. That book went through 22 versions before I released it. Definitely there was a purpose behind all of that punishment.
But I don't think the purpose has to be to transform people, unless we are calling entertainment transformation. I'm not sure that entertainment is necessarily transformational, but the drive to entertain can be just as compelling as the drive to transform.
In all things, my catalogue of 50+ books has been driven by many purposes. The most important is "karma yoga," simply letting the work go without any particular expectation for what it has to do or be. That approach has served me well, but in a world where there is clearly no free will, I claim no responsibility for having landed on the principle. It just appeared, made sense and has served my writing life very well ever since.
Great video. If you’ve never read John Gardener’s “On Becoming a Novelist” I think you might like it. His take on putting the focus on the art, first and foremost, reminds me a lot of you and has been very inspirational for me.
I just finished Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse, it was a life changing read.
I really needed this right now. Thanks a lot for posting
Thank you so much for posting so often! I just eat stuff like this up, although I'm not as well read as probably most of your listeners, I am trying to get back into it. I read so much as a teen but stopped pretty much after that. But anyway, thank you!!!
10:07 Octavia Butler didn’t have kids or a family. Toni Morrison had kids and a husband, but she and her husband divorced years before she started writing. So she did have to balance kids and her career with writing, but not the maintenance of a relationship. Also, she was working as an editor at Random House… which is not exactly in opposition to success in a writing career.
I agree with the larger points you’re making, though they’re truer of Stephen King (or most female authors) than of either of the above examples.
It is hard to continue writing after finishing a trilogy that nobody wants to read... its like shouting in the woods and hearing only silence in response...
I always remind myself that EL James remains one of the most "successful" authors of the modern era, and it sure as hell wasn't down to her writing talent. Don't quit writing because you erred in your marketing.
If nobody wanted to read book 1, why’d you write 2 more?
I joke. It all boils down to what are you writing for. If you can simply quit, it must not be much of a passion for you.
There’s dozens of reasons why nobody wants to read your trilogy. Could have little or nothing to do with your abilities as a writer.
@@jimjo8541 I agree. Now I'm going to try to make the trilogy into audiobooks. Perhaps that helps. The competition is less fierce... 😁
I've always been a creative type, writing, painting, fashion design, dance, music, poetry etc... I tried to make businesses out of my talents understanding people would pay for what they themselves cannot do. But although I pushed through building sites and learning profit margins, manufacturer ingredients, marketing etc I HATED the hustle...feeling like I had to spend my life on social posting pictures and videos and promoting myself....although passionate it felt so...eek. How does a creative type look past that. I've started stories before...I write poetry when I "feel" it but this book is a creative exploration of self and writing and idk where it's going outside it being a project for myself...I'm not even done with the first draft...I find when my drive is too much in the future I set myself up for failure. Than I donr finish and think, there we go another project unfinished...I'm also a stay at home homeschool mom of 4 so I do often find I have barriers...this week I haven't had anytime to write and was hoping to today but yet here we are having to do laundry.
Well said, Ian!
another good show. well done.
Just start watching your videos, love the ideas being spread on here.
I've recently noticed that people who actually read make higher quality youtube videos. who would've thought?
Real shit
15:55 I think maybe coffee is okay.
Ian, i was thinking about writing this sentence: "if you read the first 500 pages of THE LONELINESS OF ASTRONAUTS (AKA: TSINGTAO BLUES Year of the Snake) you would want to be my agent.." but then I decided that sounded too needy.. so i decided against it.. : (
Have you seen the discussion of Murakami on the german show "Literarisches Quartett"? A literary discussion that escalated into a personal conflict. 😂
I think one of the big reasons why people quit is because they let perfectionism hold them back.
How friendly are you book clubs to total beginners trying to tackle big books like Infinite Jest & Gravity’s Rainbow?
Super friendly. We’re super nice to each other & seriously welcome anyone who wants to join. Don’t feel discouraged.
Just a suggestion... Can you take a deep breath every now and then and pause? I'm zoning out after a few minutes, and I have no problem watching a two hour video.
Ian is already excellent at deep breathing
@@YvesThePoet :)
I’ll tell you why I’m NOT quitting: because I know for a fact I am a far better writer than the big names doing it today. Sure, may be my ego talking, but I CANNOT stomach to read modern novels. It’s shit. It’s all shit.
You do realize every great writer did it for the money and fame. This idea of saying do it cause you love it is loser talk and it’s why people who do write today suck. You find what you’re amazing at and find out how to capitalize on it. Things that you love should be hobbies nothing more.
I write because I believe I have something to share with the world. I'm very imaginative, a "deep thinker" and in tune with the emotions. 2 novel lenght pieces of garbage written but I don't give up. The thing I am writing now is a lot better than the first two uhm learning experiences. My short stories and my poems are in my cookie jar. Yes, I have a big cookie jar full of pieces of paper with many words written.😅 So, I am improving and improving until I become good enough to proudly send my stories to the world. I have hundreds of thousands of words written. I heard you need a million until you are good. Well, I will try writing something good before I reach the mark. Thanks for the encouragement. I will now write.
This is a dumb take by Murakami. Intelligence is not a matter of how fast you can think, but about the quality of your thinking. There are multiple kinds of intelligence. Most hard-scientist cannot write a brilliant novel not because they are too intelligent, but because they lack the kind of intelligence to write a great story, and i think they quit writing for this reason, not because they are able to think too quickly
Hm im not sure if they lack the intelligence. They just lack storytelling/writing skills. But I'm sure thats more or less what you meant.
The idea of multiple intelligences has been largely debunked. Cognitive ability, or the ability to handle abstractions of all kinds, correlates most closely with IQ. What I think Murikami was describing is actually more attributable to personality differences, and personal preference rather than purely differences in the pop psychology notion of"intelligence"
@@Street_whys Murakami clearly says that if you think too quickly You cannot be a long-time novelist, equating that to being too intelligent.He wasn't referring to personality or character( it would have been a better argument), but brute thinking abilities.
He even suggest that he may not be too smart, as a support to his point!
More over, he makes the mistake of joining Intelligence with Knowledge.
From the "human Intelligence" wiki page: "There are conflicting ideas about how intelligence should be conceptualized and measured. In psychometrics, human intelligence is commonly assessed by intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, although the validity of these tests is disputed. Several subcategories of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence and social intelligence, have been proposed, and there remains significant debate as to whether these represent distinct forms of intelligence.".
In other words, you are thinking to narrowly about intelligence.
An example: A professional team sport player must be highly intelligent to compete at the highest levels, because his tasks includes tactical reasoning, deep in-game intuition and creativity, an insane level of mind-body coordination, fast learning, the social reading needed to be in a team and the iron emotional stability you need to endure the dullness of training, between many other characteristics.
All these are features of Intelligence.
And yet He may score average on the IQ tests because they are are not designed to measure Intelligence in an holistic manner, but just one of its niches. Thei are biased