Is this why we are here, just to suffer?

[StillStunned]

Words are infinitely more powerful than sticks and stones. Writing begets pain. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Therefore as a writer, you have to be a god-tier masochist.

this has been a koan from Radio Free Wanda. And now, a word from our sponsors.

Or a sadist. You know, if the pain your writing begets is the good kind of pain, namely someone else's.

 

[TheLobster]

Or a sadist. You know, if the pain your writing begets is the good kind of pain, namely someone else's.

Like your editor's?

 

[StillStunned]

Like your editor's?

Editors are sacred beings who should be cherished, not hurt.

And remember that the root comes from the Greek "edein",* meaning "to eat". Ask yourself whether you want to find out *what* they eat.

* No it doesn't. I made that up on the spot.

 

[TheLobster]

Ask yourself whether you want to find out *what* they eat.

As writers, we are always told to "kill our darlings." I assume we're then supposed to feed them to our editors.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I feel your pain. As a newish writer (time, not words) I did the EXACT same thing when I first published here. The unfortunate thing is that once a story is up, getting an edit through is a long - and I mean LONG - experience. I've never actually managed to do it. I had one edit to a story sit pending for more than two weeks and I ended up deleting it. By that time, I didn't even remember what I'd edited, and it was just typos and not anything germane to the plot, so I let it go.

Hell, I recall in one of my stories getting called out by a reader because I'd used the wrong last name for the MC a few times, because I started conflating characters in my head. I knew I needed to get an edit to that up, but I decided to just let it go, and even made an in-world joke in a future chapter about it.

You've taken the first step. You'll soon get into a groove, and that groove will include editing. Like, a lot of it. I probably spent nearly as much time rereading and editing stuff as I do writing it in the first place. As was told to me - and told to you here - it's much easier to wait to press publish than wait to get an edit.

Welcome aboard!

 

[Voboy]

You're not suffering. You're learning.

Next time? Be more careful before you submit. That's the lesson.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I can't sleep, my body aches, and nothing is scratching the itch. After years of internal debate, the stars have aligned: I'm going to write my own smut.

For the next 10 hours, I'm consumed in horny-induced writing frenzy.

As the haze lifts, consciousness returning, I bear witness: a 6.5k word fetish-laden masterpiece lies before me. I create my account, (since I of course hadn't thought that far ahead) realize I have to wait to be admitted, and, with no other recourse, finally go to bed.

I wake up 12 hours later to the alert of my account being accepted. I hastily submit my work, before realizing there's *another* period of waiting; the work must be manually reviewed. I sigh, and go about my life.

In only 12 short hours, the work is reviewed, accepted, and set to publish at midnight, much to my pleasant surprise.

As the day turns, early views hitting, I sit down to enjoy the work in its shiny new published format.

I'm horrified.

My work is on life-support. It is positively BURSTING at the seams with amateur writing mistakes. Tense slop at every turn. Jarring pacing interrupting flows. Meaningless repetition. The only thing keeping it from flatlining is its powerful core, and strong understanding of the fetish. I grab my keyboard, furious at past me, who allowed this travesty to occur. You fucking idiot.

Another 7 hours pass as I perform a triple-bypass open heart surgery, touching almost every single paragraph of the work, correcting the sins of my past. Slowly but surely, I dissect and reconstruct my piece, and finally... it is done. Despite everything, the story is able to stand on it's own legs. A single tear runs down my eye as I resubmit the now 8k edit, knowing I've saved a life today.

That was three days ago.

Views and ratings continue to pour in own my original piece, ignorant that it's true beauty lies in Pending Prison. I refresh the page every hour, but its always the same. Pending. Pending. Always Pending.

Friends, I may not make it. I feel my life ebbing with every f5. I just want you all to know, as my consciousness fades: I love you all.

(Also, before you say it, I know 3 days is a perfectly normal amount of time for a work to be pending. This post is just a light-hearted outlet for me to be a big baby and vent my frustration that I can't have everything I want as soon as I want it. Feel free to join in and do the same, and we can all wail and bemoan at life's great injustices.)

Maybe you're taking all of this a little too seriously? I've asked before it this site will still be here in - pick a year, 2060, 2070 - and if anybody will be reading the 500 K stories presently on here? I can't be sure, but I'd guess not. I can be sure that I won't be here to find out.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Words are infinitely more powerful than sticks and stones. Writing begets pain. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Therefore as a writer, you have to be a god-tier masochist.

this has been a koan from Radio Free Wanda. And now, a word from our sponsors.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body." That has been attributed to Marine Corp general "Chesty" Fuller (1898 - 1971). Whatever he was talking about, it wasn't writing. The Marines liked it so much that they still use it as a motto.

 

[MisterWindDong]

Congrats on the awakening of your muse.

Like anything else, this is a learning curve, and we all suffer growing pains anytime we try something new. You learned that you can't immediately and impulsively upload something in a rush, that you need to have a cooling period during which you have someone else take a look, or just go through it yourself and fix as much as you can.

Submitting an edited version takes longer to approve than a standard story, and when the fixed version comes through it does not bump the story back to new status so the first few days your story is out will end up being the biggest influx of readers. But if you publish more stories, and it sounds like you will, new stories draw attention to previous ones and that group will see the better version.

Don't obsess over it, take the beating, and move forward without looking back.

My first story here was a mess, bad punctuation, some typos, inconsistent dialogue tags, writing itself kind of clunky in spots.

But I kept going and that was fifteen years ago.

We all start somewhere, and the good news for you is it won't be hard to improve the quality of the next one.

Thanks man, I sincerely appreciate the kind words. Agree with them too. Its not my first rodeo with growing pains, so I know this kind of thing is just all part of the process.

It's funny really; in the infinite wisdom my age begets, I expected growing pains and needing to re-edit, but was 'ok with it' in my rush to get it published. What I DIDN'T expect was edits taking so much longer to publish than new stories.

You know what they say, you never stop learning. Life has a way of reminding you that you don't really know shit, no matter how old ya get. Like you say, I'm sure it will get into the readers hands eventually, and I know better now for the next story.

I figured I wasn't alone in this feeling though, as the Lit. publishing cycle is quite unique, so I threw up this thread to serve as an example for other newbies like me, and let you experienced writers have a trip down memory lane seeing me struggle.

Everyone has been great, you included, and I appreciate ya sharing your wisdom. Next story will have a lot more shine!

 

[MisterWindDong]

Maybe you're taking all of this a little too seriously? I've asked before it this site will still be here in - pick a year, 2060, 2070 - and if anybody will be reading the 500 K stories presently on here? I can't be sure, but I'd guess not. I can be sure that I won't be here to find out.

The post is meant to be ironically overdramatic, for the sake of humor / venting about a first world problem / non-problem. Don't worry, I'm not actually tearing any hair out!

Its not really a big deal, its just frustrating in a niche way that I thought others would enjoy piling in on.

 

[MisterWindDong]

Like your editor's?

sir this kind of violence has been reported to the feelings police, you are going straight to jail

 

[MisterWindDong]

I feel your pain. As a newish writer (time, not words) I did the EXACT same thing when I first published here. The unfortunate thing is that once a story is up, getting an edit through is a long - and I mean LONG - experience. I've never actually managed to do it. I had one edit to a story sit pending for more than two weeks and I ended up deleting it. By that time, I didn't even remember what I'd edited, and it was just typos and not anything germane to the plot, so I let it go.

Hell, I recall in one of my stories getting called out by a reader because I'd used the wrong last name for the MC a few times, because I started conflating characters in my head. I knew I needed to get an edit to that up, but I decided to just let it go, and even made an in-world joke in a future chapter about it.

You've taken the first step. You'll soon get into a groove, and that groove will include editing. Like, a lot of it. I probably spent nearly as much time rereading and editing stuff as I do writing it in the first place. As was told to me - and told to you here - it's much easier to wait to press publish than wait to get an edit.

Welcome aboard!

Thanks Sinclair, I had a feeling I wasn't alone. The process is very unique, but as with all things, the easiest way to shoot yourself in the foot is arrogance or impatience, and I had a little of one and a LOT of the other.

That edit is gonna sit there until the end of time if that's how long it takes, the story is SO much better with that edit in place. Its not actually about the numbers for me as it is being happy with my work. After the revisions, I am MUCH happier, and in reading it again multiple times to myself, I feel at peace. So eventually, it'll be live, and that's good enough for me.

To your point though, I think I spent a total of 10-11 hours writing the 1.0, and at least 7 on the revision, if not more. So almost 1 to 1, and it still isn't *perfect*. So I absolutely believe you when you say rereading and editing is gonna take close to if not more time. I think that's just how it is, even for experienced writers, just a part of the trade kinda deal.

Thanks for the welcome! its a lesson well learned.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Or a sadist. You know, if the pain your writing begets is the good kind of pain, namely someone else's.

You heard about the sadist and the masochist, didn’t you?

The masochist said, “Hurt me.”

The sadist, after a long pause, smiled and said, “No.”

 

[TheLobster]

You heard about the sadist and the masochist, didn’t you?

The masochist said, “Hurt me.”

The sadist, after a long pause, smiled and said, “No.”

My overly logical brain tells me there's a paradox of infinite regress there...

 

[SimonDoom]

The Buddha understood that suffering is the essence of the smut writer. The smut writer must seek the way of Enlightenment to avoid suffering. It takes a while, but you'll get there. It includes things like:

Right patience --the story will be published when it's published. Let go of anticipation.

Right moms -- enjoy the kinky pleasures of moms, free of guilt.

Right obscenity -- choose your words unconsciously. Revel in their sight, sound and feel, without thinking too hard, like you would greeting a breast snapped free from a 36DD bra cup.

Right math -- forget the numbers.

Right hearing -- enjoy all the comments, even the bad ones. When a reader wants you dead because the wife in your story got away with it, think, We all die. What's so bad about that?

Right truth -- if it feels truly kinky, it doesn't matter if it's possible for a person to do that with a foot or not.

Practice every day, and you'll get the hang of it.

 

[vanmyers86]

Welcome to the madness! Someday (possibly sooner than you think), this will evolve into a cherished story. Until then - this happens to us all.

Also - when I was just starting out, I kept a spreadsheet of the stats on every story I published - pub day and date, ratings, word count, category, etc. - anything that I thought might help me analyze what worked and what didn't. Stopped all that after three years because I realized it was impossible to fathom the hearts and minds of readers. They want what they want when they want it, and sometimes I was going to hit the market lucky and other times not. Now, I just write for myself and don't worry about it. But I always run spell check.

 

[Voboy]

"Pain is weakness leaving the body." That has been attributed to Marine Corp general "Chesty" Fuller (1898 - 1971). Whatever he was talking about, it wasn't writing. The Marines liked it so much that they still use it as a motto.

Might be a typo, but it's Puller, not Fuller.

I only mention that because if it's not a typo, you're going to mess up one day and say "Chesty Fuller" and some Marine veteran nearby is going to mock you mercilessly.

I don't think Chesty was the one who said that, but I doubt anybody knows for sure. It's a great quote, regardless.

 

[Britva415]

And that's... that's normal? Edits take longer?

Absolutely. New stories are top priority.

 

[MillieDynamite]

We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

 

[MillieDynamite]

 

[gunhilltrain]

sir this kind of violence has been reported to the feelings police, you are going straight to jail

Here's also being charged with trolling - saying something for the effect it will have rather than it being true or not. However, since it's a first offense, bail will be set at a reasonable level. This is America. Innocent until proven guilty.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Might be a typo, but it's Puller, not Fuller.

I only mention that because if it's not a typo, you're going to mess up one day and say "Chesty Fuller" and some Marine veteran nearby is going to mock you mercilessly.

I don't think Chesty was the one who said that, but I doubt anybody knows for sure. It's a great quote, regardless.

Picking nits before I had my morning coffee. I'm pretty sure I've never wrote or uttered his name before. Besides, I'm seventy and even Marines would know I'm not as sharp mentally as I used to be.

https://images03.military.com/sites...public/2020-05/meps_marines_recruits_1200.jpg

 

[Voboy]

Picking nits before I had my morning coffee. I'm pretty sure I've never wrote or uttered his name before. Besides, I'm seventy and even Marines would know I'm not as sharp mentally as I used to be.

https://images03.military.com/sites...public/2020-05/meps_marines_recruits_1200.jpg

I wasn't a Marine, but I know a bunch and they don't fuck around with Chesty.

They attribute everything to him. I know Marine vets that insist every quote about the USMC was said by him, even the ones with ironclad attribution to someone else. It's sorta amusing, but pretty harmless too; Puller's a useful hero for the Corps to rally around, if they need someone.

And, to the point of the thread, Chesty Puller was a man that really knew how to suffer.

 

[StillStunned]

You heard about the sadist and the masochist, didn’t you?

The masochist said, “Hurt me.”

The sadist, after a long pause, smiled and said, “No.”

I'm pretty sure I was the one who first posted that joke on Lit.

It's still a good one though.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I'm pretty sure I was the one who first posted that joke on Lit.

It's still a good one though.

No such thing as a new joke, just a new audience, and that’s pretty hit or miss.