# Being a good writer/poet is bad...



## WolfoxOkamichan (Jul 30, 2008)

...especially if you know what happened to the past good writers.

Like Hemingway blasting his head off after winning an award, or Plath putting her head in an oven...


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## Xipoid (Jul 31, 2008)

Well... you _don't have to_ kill yourself. You could always just, I don't know... not place your head in extreme peril?


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## Magikian (Jul 31, 2008)

Xipoid said:


> Well... you _don't have to_ kill yourself. You could always just, I don't know... not place your head in extreme peril?



But what's the fun in that?


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## makmakmob (Jul 31, 2008)

Maybe it's because great writers expect too much of themselves? I dunno. Maybe they just don't like heads.


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## Magikian (Jul 31, 2008)

makmakmob said:


> Maybe it's because great writers expect too much of themselves? I dunno. Maybe they just don't like heads.



I'd say the latter.

Heads are a problem and only writers seem to understand this.


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## Ride_the_Lightning (Jul 31, 2008)

Your shot at 'immortality' is better if you die young, even more-so if you kill yourself or die of drug abuse.


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## makmakmob (Jul 31, 2008)

Ride_the_Lightning said:


> Your shot at 'immortality' is better if you die young, even more-so if you kill yourself or die of drug abuse.



That's an interesting point.


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## WolfoxOkamichan (Jul 31, 2008)

http://www.alternativereel.com/cult-fiction/Literary_Deaths.php

There we go


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 31, 2008)

Incidentally, I tend to despise the writings of anyone who was constantly depressed and ended up committing suicide.  Why?  Because everything they wrote was depressing as hell.
Actually, there's an interesting thought on this in The World According to Garp.  A piece of writing can be awful, but if it's somehow connected to a tragedy, it'll sell millions of copies.  I don't think it's [always] because the writer is any 'good', persay, so much as it's that people thrive on drama and controversy.


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## dietrc70 (Jul 31, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Incidentally, I tend to despise the writings of anyone who was constantly depressed and ended up committing suicide.  Why?  Because everything they wrote was depressing as hell.
> Actually, there's an interesting thought on this in The World According to Garp.  A piece of writing can be awful, but if it's somehow connected to a tragedy, it'll sell millions of copies.  I don't think it's [always] because the writer is any 'good', persay, so much as it's that people thrive on drama and controversy.



I agree with you.  I do not understand the appeal of depressing memoirs and stories that people in the US seem to like so much.  I hate falsely optimistic stories, but a good, emotionally powerful tragedy or drama does not need to slide into the nihilism of depression.

In my case, I have chronic depression and other problems that have made it impossible for me to work for years, and I rarely leave the house.  For me, writing (when I can do it), is an escape, and so I try to create fantastic worlds and characters that are as far away from my reality as possible.  My work is extremely dark, but I don't think it is depressing.  (If it were, I would not be able to stand reading it. )


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## lobosabio (Aug 1, 2008)

Wait...so this means if I become famous I'm going to have to go off myself?  Fuck this shit; obscurity for me!


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## AriusEx (Aug 2, 2008)

Xipoid said:


> Well... you _don't have to_ kill yourself. You could always just, I don't know... not place your head in extreme peril?



Softie.


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## yuri-bloodfang (Aug 2, 2008)

Now I know what I have to look forward to.  Many say I'm good... glad I don't own a firearm.


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## Micah Coon (Aug 2, 2008)

Heh...
Wasn't Hemmingway a bit...oh, what's the word?
Damaged?


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## Belladonna Starfire (Aug 4, 2008)

If you choose to write something and it is in fact depressing, depending on the situation determinants the depth of the thought being written.  Example Shakespeare and Edger Allen Poe two of my personal favorite writer of all time were brutally depressing and yet mysterious to a point that the curiosity of the suspense contradicted the depressing formant of such literary work


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## Ecs Wolfie (Aug 4, 2008)

*Laughs* Sorry but one of those in that list are rather entertaining to me

But I have no clue why they would have done that to themselves, Mabey they thought hey i'll be more famous after I die, I have no clue, I'd rather stick with my art. ^^;


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## ScottyDM (Aug 5, 2008)

WolfoxOkamichan said:


> ...especially if you know what happened to the past good writers.
> 
> Like Hemingway blasting his head off after winning an award, or Plath putting her head in an oven...


And your point is that we should strive to be bad writers? No thanks.

There are damaged people in the world... tortured souls. It takes a special mindset to successfully pursue a professional writing career in fiction and sometimes tortured souls are capable because _they don't have anything else they care that much about doing_. Mentally healthy and well adjusted people are also capable of creating a professional career in fiction--except they don't kill themselves after they achieve it.

I don't think fame has anything to do with it.

Scotty


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## Ultrafox (Aug 5, 2008)

Look on the bright side. Writers may be more at risk from suicide and depression, but they have a decreased risk of degenerative brain disease.

Swings and roundabouts.

Fox XXX


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## WolfoxOkamichan (Aug 5, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> And your point is that we should strive to be bad writers? No thanks.
> 
> There are damaged people in the world... tortured souls. It takes a special mindset to successfully pursue a professional writing career in fiction and sometimes tortured souls are capable because _they don't have anything else they care that much about doing_. Mentally healthy and well adjusted people are also capable of creating a professional career in fiction--except they don't kill themselves after they achieve it.
> 
> ...



Looks like someone took me quite seriously.


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## ScottyDM (Aug 5, 2008)

WolfoxOkamichan said:


> Looks like someone took me quite seriously.


Ahhh, the, "I was only kidding," defense. Nice.  


I have a friend who refuses to date blonds because he thinks that blonds are dumb. When I questioned him on how he came to that conclusion he said that blonds on TV were dumb and as an example he cited Kelly from _Married With Children_ (he loved to watch the reruns). When I suggested that Kelly was a character played for laughs by an actress and that the actress might actually be a smart person, he was stumped for a moment. Then his face brightened and he retorted, "I'm blond." I said, "Kenny, one data point does not make a trend."

I have an observation on your original post. Out of the many, many writers of the past 50 years or so, you offer the example of the fate of two. While you have twice as many data points as my friend Kenny, I hardly think two out of thousands indicates any sort of trend.

Social cues: {my tail is down in a relaxed position, my ears are forward focused on you, and my head it is tilted a bit to the right} I have a question. What was your point?

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Aug 5, 2008)

If you're looking for much of anything to have a point on forums like these, Scotty, good luck with that...  (Then again, I just got off the "FurAffinity still isn't back yet" whining and/or vapid-posts-to-bump-up-one's-post-count thread, so I'm not feeling overly generous at the moment.)


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## Vore Writer (Aug 5, 2008)

This is FA. People will whine over spilt milk.


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## Toonces (Aug 5, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Incidentally, I tend to despise the writings of anyone who was constantly depressed and ended up committing suicide.  Why?  Because everything they wrote was depressing as hell.
> Actually, there's an interesting thought on this in The World According to Garp.  A piece of writing can be awful, but if it's somehow connected to a tragedy, it'll sell millions of copies.  I don't think it's [always] because the writer is any 'good', persay, so much as it's that people thrive on drama and controversy.



"persay"

This is the dumbest thread and you're the dumbest person in it.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 6, 2008)

> "persay"
> 
> This is the dumbest thread and you're the dumbest person in it.


Ha ha... where the hell did that come from?
In any case, I think this thread's served its purpose.  Apparently it's touched some raw nerves.


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## Ride_the_Lightning (Aug 6, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Apparently it's touched some raw nerves.



How a thread like this can insult anyone is beyond me.


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## ScottyDM (Aug 7, 2008)

TooncesFA said:


> "persay"
> 
> This is the dumbest thread and you're the dumbest person in it.


It's pronounced "persay" but spelled "per se". While it's Not A Good Thing for a writer to misspell a word, even if it is Latin and he got the phonetic spelling right, it hardly qualifies him as the dumbest person in the thread.



M. Le Renard said:


> Apparently it's touched some raw nerves.


I was enraged by the title. Then I read the first post and through, "Oh...!" It wasn't as bad as I'd expected, but Toonces called it--it _is_ the dumbest thread.

We must be bored.

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 7, 2008)

> It's pronounced "persay" but spelled "per se".


Shucks.  I wonder if I ever knew that.


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## Xipoid (Aug 7, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Shucks.  I wonder if I ever knew that.




My, you just aren't doing well today. First you incite anger, and now you're misspelling words. What next? Simultaneously hit by a bus and struck by lightning? Oh, what a strange day that would be.


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