Yeah...except that there's complications with that one. I'm not set-up to the point where I can really meet a stranger for this sort of thing. Truthfully, the only thing I can do right now is try to get out there to make friends who have the same interests as I do. I take online courses instead of attending standard public school, so I don't get to meet many kids my age (plus there's the fact that it seems like all of the schools around where I live are filled with inbred brain-dead idiots).
You could try to enroll in the public school. Its not that bad once you get used to it. Since youre already a libertarian, theres little chance to become brainwashed, and more chance to become a critic of the state.
Youll probably enjoy it at first, but youll soon hate it later on.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
Dude I've been in public school before. Grades PreK - 2, and Grades 4 - 6.
Hell. Absolute and utter hell.
Elementary school for me was not too bad for me. Im an immigrant, and i was really young, so half the time i was discovering a new environment.
It was utter hell around grade 7+.
You're an immigrant? Cool.
@ Anenome
Hey,
I'm around 27,000 words into the book. I just checked out Literary Marketplace as a potential place to get an agent...except they require you to be 18 or older to use the site. What do you recommend I check out in order to attempt to get an agent?
Just do things the old fashioned way: research. You'll have a better result too.
Listen, there's only going to be about 50 literary agents in the world worth talking to in your genre. These are the people that lunch with publishers and know what they're looking for and thus can shop to them immediately. They're mainly in New York.
So, the thing to do is find books in your genre and then do some reasearch to find out which agent represents that author. Almost all of them do online submissions by emails these days.
Once you know your dream agent, finish your book. Do not talk to an agent before you have a finished book. Really you could look for agents after finishing the book :P
Then you'll need to learn to write a query letter, like I was telling you. Check out these query-critique sites:
http://queryshark.blogspot.com/
http://evileditor.blogspot.com/2012/11/face-lift-1084.html
A query is a literary form all to itself, so it too must be mastered. Read Queryshark from the beginning of its archive to present (like I did) and keep reading weekly, so that by the time it comes to actually write a query you'll be very familiar with them.
There's more than a few query blogs that accept model submissions, so when you're ready, write a query of your own and submit it for critique :)
Hope that helps. Be sure to mention your age in the bottom note portion of the query.
Thanks, just read a bunch of the QueryShark stuff. Honestly it's a little hard to keep track of the person's advice, so I think the thing for me would be to just write one on my own and send it to them and have it critiqued (and possibly get brutally destroyed).
Make sure you read the Checklist for submitting work to the Shark.
Oh. Crap.
Now's not the time to concern yourself with query letters. You can put that off until after you've got a book finished. Just keep writing!
Haha, yeah.
We Want Libertarian Stories (Fiction & Non-Fiction) for Book Anthology
I strongly recommend doing short stories as an exercise of craft. These people are looking for libertarian fiction and non of ~5,000 words. I'm gonna try hard to submit a piece :)
I just sent my short story off to the New Yorker. I'll be sure to make a thread about it once it gets published in that magazine or any other.
Just finished my somewhat libertarian novel. All it needs is some edits and then...poof. Time to attack the publishing side of things. The book is like a combination of Taxi Driver and Catcher in the Rye. I take out a lot of my rage on it and employ personal pessimism.
That was pretty fast man. How many hours a day do you spend writing
Eh, the time varies. It's going to come out to be a novella actually, clocked in at about 43,000 words.
May I suggest publishing short stories on the Voluntaryist Reader? This way you will get friendly feedback, allowing you to build around the strengths in order to grow characters and stories for a novel.
SkepticalMetal: Eh, the time varies. It's going to come out to be a novella actually, clocked in at about 43,000 words.
Remember, true writing is re-writing. First drafts are shit.
Is your definition of re-writing going to your first draft and changing things, or completely writing the same story all over again?
SkepticalMetal: Is your definition of re-writing going to your first draft and changing things, or completely writing the same story all over again?
It means improving your draft. And there are better and worse ways to go about it. I generally start with a structural refinement, scenes, etc. The final pass is at the word and sentence level for grammar and spelling and the like, once you have your plot in place and the structure finalized. (Because what's the use in working on paragraphs you might later remove.)
If you want to write fiction professionally you'll need to learn the craft of writing. I suggest joining an online writer's circle, something like Critters.org. Then start reading the classics on craft, like Lajos Egri's Art of Dramatic Writing. Starting at your age is very promising.
@ Andris Birkmanis
I would assuredly do so, notwithstanding however the datum being that the "apply here" option leads to oblivion.
My apologies, looks like gremlins ate some characters from the link... Fixed that. It should bring you to another board, which we use for organizational stuff. I'm afraid you need an account there in order to post, so maybe I have to come up with an easier way to apply. Like a thread on LvMI forums.
Okay then, done, thanks. What would you like me to write about?
Whatever is your current angle, provided it is libertarian :)
I thought you are interested in fiction, so what about taking a few libertarian and/or economic principles and demonstrating them in a short story? Or maybe just a story of a statist coming to his senses and seeing how the state destroys humanity? Like Pictures of the Socialist Future, but about the hurricane Sandy and the government's reaction to it? An enthusiastic supporter of the government's policies becomes more and more disillusioned in them, when witnessing their results firsthand.
I'm actually working on a short story now. I'll be sure to put it on The Voluntaryist Reader once I register it with the Writer's Guild.