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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2580 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 29, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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After a fairly long stretch of rejections, I just had a piece shortlisted for a fiction anthology. It feels good to have a little success.

It really felt like 2025 was a dead year for hack writers like me, but 2026 might be improving. Any other writers here? How's your luck?

Had another op-ed rejected; and forgot to join in the ACX book review competition. Oh well.

ACX book review competition

Maybe it's for the best. I've noticed, perhaps somewhat uncharitably, that the greater Scott-diaspora and larger rationalist community tend to treat writing as a sport, or even as a naked dominance exercise.

It's fascinating to read as a case study in rhetoric and status-jockeying, but it's also tiring after a while. We get it. You're smart. You're smarter than me. Your 160,000 word blog post on why mormons would have built superintelligent AI on the moon if it weren't for female empowerment and declining cultural notions of Asabiyyah has proven that you are a very smart and special boy. Good job. Now that you've scored your points, can we get back to the original goal of meeting in the middle and finding a truth that's greater than the ones we each hold?

If you've never read it, Neal Stephenson did an interview decades ago where he talked about the two classes of writer. It's worth a read.

Stephenson belongs to his own class. While I loved the former, there aren’t that many authors that produce works similar to Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.

Diamond Age is my favorite but nothing really compares to the Baroque Cycle.

That interview reminds me of Ian Fleming's old article on writing:

I have a charming relative who is an angry young litterateur of renown. He is maddened by the fact that more people read my books than his. Not long ago we had semi-friendly words on the subject and I tried to cool his boiling ego by saying that his artistic purpose was far, far higher than mine. The target of his books was the head and, to some extent at least, the heart. The target of my books, I said, lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh. These self-deprecatory remarks did nothing to mollify him and finally, with some impatience and perhaps with something of an ironical glint in my eye, I asked him how he described himself on his passport.

“I bet you call yourself an ‘Author’,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a ‘Writer’. There are authors and artists, and then again there are writers and painters.”

This rather spiteful jibe, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of The Establishment, while stealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsman of the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money.

+1 for the rec, it's a great essay.

Good on you. I am not a real writer. I've always kind of sort of wished I was better at writing because sometimes I have cool and interesting ideas for stories and then if I start writing my standards are way higher than my talents, I get frustrated, then I get bored and quit a week or two later.

I just started trying again since I had the idea of using AI to critique my work and offer suggestions. Its actual suggests for prose are always garbage, but its critiques of which parts of what I wrote are bad and why help me focus on how to improve beyond my own vague instincts of "this isn't satisfying but I'm not sure why."

I managed to write one chapter in three weeks (as a side project, again, not a real writer). I suspect I need to just write more and edit less until later. At least that's advice I've heard about writing, but I'm not entirely convinced. I don't think my main character has a sufficiently well-developed personality yet but I made a lot of progress on establishing him better by rewriting scenes over and over again until they felt more interesting.

Any advice?

My advice would be to start out doing short stories. They have a couple of advantages.

First, they have a quicker turnaround. You can get a first draft done in a week or less. This means that you have more time on the back end to rework what you have into something that works. A lot of good writing that you see in books is actually rewritten, and often several times. If you have a story that’s ten to fifteen pages, you can easily rewrite the bad prose, or fix the plotting or see where the characters are doing weird things.

Second, the level of detail you need to get started is a bit less. You don’t have the space for a long detailed plot, or fifteen pages worth of world building information. You don’t have the space in the story to worry about what happened to your main character in the fifth grade and all the trauma it caused him. In all of that, you have time to hit the highlights and move on. This removes the temptation to follow Tolkien in the sense of spending large amounts of time building an entire universe and not writing the story.

Third, they’re easy to put out into the world. You can just put it on a blog, or a website. You can submit to short story contests, you can print them at kinkos and hand them out on street corners. Thus the need to worry about gatekeepers is less.

As far as characters, I personally use the type descriptions from personality tests (MBTI or Socionics or Enneagram) simply to get a sense of how the character might think. That helps me because if I don’t make a point of giving each character a different personality, they all end up sounding like me.

I’ll also recommend looking up the Brandon Sanderson lectures on either podcast or YouTube. He’s dealing with a more advanced level of writer, but it’s helpful. You can also find podcasts about the technical skills of writing like characters and descriptions and so on.

I suspect I need to just write more and edit less until later. At least that's advice I've heard about writing, but I'm not entirely convinced

My biggest weakness as an author is that I am convinced that my output is absolute dogshit. I've thrown out multiple novels that were over 70% finished because I was disgusted with the work. I'll end up in rewrite spirals and give up.

Lately, I've had a lot more success by Just Writing. I don't do anything but write forward until I have every major story beat on paper. Then and only then, do I allow myself to go back and rework things.

I don't think my main character has a sufficiently well-developed personality yet but I made a lot of progress on establishing him better by rewriting scenes over and over again until they felt more interesting.

I do this by doing two things:

  1. I write character sketches before starting for major characters. It's a pulp tool, but knowing a few things they'll always do, a few things they'll never do, the first thing you'd notice if you saw them, and the first thing you'd notice if you heard them helps a lot.
  2. If my main character starts driving the story off the rails? Well, then I have good character development and I need to change the story.

I once had a pretty large indie publisher ask about my novel. I told them that I have a lot of shit on my plate, and I do not expect to finish it in a timely manner. I deserve points for honesty.

Beyond that? Someone pledged money to my Substack, which is something I only vaguely dreamed of monetizing, and do not go around begging money for. I accept upvotes and engagement as valid currency. He's a big name, and $8 is $8, even if it's a theoretical $8 that I can't be arsed to redeem just yet.

I am very glad that writing is just a hobby, and I don't want to go full-time pro. My work and life gives me the material for the writing anyway.

$8 is $8

I'm not gonna lie - that line has gotten me into some real trouble in the past.

Well, if you're looking for money through writing, I can imagine. For me, it's $20, $3.50 or free.

Oh, I never said anything about writing.

But yeah, also writing. You wouldn't believe what kind of per-word you can get doing werewolf erotica.

That's disgusting! I'd never sell out my art like that for mere astounding wads of cash! Now, where can I find these sorts of markets so I know how to avoid them?

I usually use submission grinder to start.

There must be a correlation with certain highly specialised kinks, autism, IQ and earning potential.

I don't recall ever meeting a stupid furry. I had a talented artist friend once and 90% of her commissions were for drawings of furry porn.

I don't know about furries, but my editor at the time told me that the "alternative erotica" market is basically 100% driven by women.

So far as I can tell, if you include literary works in the "porn" category, then the average female porn-consumer is faaar more degenerate than the average male.

It kinda blew my mind.

Because I refuse to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and instead buy my Kindle books so that the authors can actually at least attempt to make a living, I used to see that stuff pop up on Kindle Countdown deals all the time and yeah, it's eye-opening for sure.

Now, as a gentleman enthusiast of the literary arts, how to find these people...

Maybe a career switch is advisable. I will consult our resident furries for advice.

How's your luck?

Non-existent. Congratulations, though!

Your substack is bigger than mine though.

True. I meant writing in the sense of writing fiction.

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