I suck at LoL

On August 03 2013 07:47 krndandaman wrote:
1. what role do you play? I can give some specific advice from getting over that hurdle. just got into gold and about to get into gold III (was silver I a week ago and went from 1000 elo to 1600 elo in ~2months as well)

On August 03 2013 08:10 docvoc wrote:

Mid or top or jungle. I suck at everything else but I have really bad or really great games as jungler as well. I'm gonna grab that gold, I'll just use TF to do it, that's how I win at every other game LOL. I love TF <3.

Also, Jkirby, I just do. I've had a lot of time to read, and I want to be a better writer, and publish at least one novel in my life time, so yeah I just read.

Also, I can force myself to read, usually I have to, to get through the boring parts of the novels I read. I'll eventually enjoy the books or hate them, too, which can make things cool or not cool haha. The 100 pages is a set amount that allows me to read about 2 novels a week. I want to be able to read about 120 pages in 2 hours, which is my goal, 1 page a minute. My gf is a crazy fast reader and can do about 300 pages in 2 hours T.T

EDIT: Also, I'd like to play DotA, the only issue is that the only competitive game my friends play is LoL and the ones that play sc2 are like worse than bronze, so it's no fun. My friends in LoL, some of which are as good as me, some are worse, a couple are better, so it's an easier fit. If I had friends that played DotA instead of LoL, I'd be playing DotA.

On August 03 2013 10:18 Bentus wrote:
In my opinion, it is just stupid to read hundred pages of Kafka a day.You just miss the message of the book. These require deep analysis. We analysed "The Process" for about 3months and still found a lot of new things each day. And if you force yourself to read it, you will neither enjoy nor really profit from it..

On August 03 2013 09:42 Jerubaal wrote:
What are your reasons for wanting to read more?

On August 03 2013 10:55 Jerubaal wrote:
I guessed as much, but I wanted you to say it first.

You're right. It seems that great writers usually start off as people who love reading. That's the catch though. You have to love reading. I don't think any great writer forced themselves to read like they were doing pushups.

What sort of writing do you have in mind?

On August 03 2013 10:41 docvoc wrote:

3 reasons

The top reason: I want to be a better writer, great readers tend to spawn great (or at least better than average) writers. The best way to become a great writer other than writing daily is to read often.

Secondary reason: I didn't get to experience books I necessarily loved in highschool, and while I learned how to read effectively enough and write in an ok manner, I didn't get to experience everything I wanted to book wise. That's more than true for more modern novels (i.e. the modernism and post-modernism that I read now)

Final, more selfish reason: It makes me feel smart in a way. When I conquer books like Infinite Jest or For Whom the Bell Tolls, or other books that are considered difficult reads, I feel like I achieved something. Even though the feeling is ephemeral, mostly because I realize that I'm not the only one to have conquered that mountain, it still feels nice to know that I was able to do it. This isn't what keeps me going though, it's a nice after-taste.

Bisuever, yeah I do suck, LOL.


Azera, I'll probably do what Haji does and link my wordpress at the bottom of my blog if I ever cross post, but more than likely what I will do is link something I wrote on there at the bottom of my blog and say something like, "here's my other blog." I'll pm you the links for sure though . If you make a blog like it, I wanna read yours too haha.

On August 03 2013 11:06 BisuEver wrote:

I feel Infinite Jest is the other perspective of DoctorHelvetica's blog. http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=113012

Thoughts?

Do you feel good about yourself when you've destroyed these books?

On August 03 2013 11:15 docvoc wrote:

When I thoroughly enjoy a book, I get a great feeling at the end; a feeling that my time was totally worth it . When I finish a really difficult book, I get a powerful feeling at the end; I just accomplished something difficult. Even more so for this if I enjoyed it. If I don't enjoy a book and I finish it, I get an ok feeling at the end; it's like, fucking hell, I just finished that, glad I did it, not reading it again unless I really want to lol.

The first category would be Man's Fate or The Stranger
The second category would be For Whom the Bell Tolls or Infinite Jest
The third hasn't happened often, but I guess the only book I can really say I didn't enjoy at all was maybe... actually I haven't finished a book and been angry I spent my time reading it yet, so if I get a book like this, I'll tell you haha.

I've seen that blog before, people tell me it was Jest-inspired, though I haven't had the time to read through it fully, but I'm guessing if everyone says so, I should respect that it probably is similar.

EDIT: Just read it, they are polar opposites lol, I can see what people are saying, though the one thing about infinite jest that made it so great was the layering of jokes, like naming the conglomeration of states O.N.A.N. or experialism, etc. that blog doesn't have that as much. The plot though, yeah, total polar opposite.

On August 04 2013 00:14 obesechicken13 wrote:
I don't read the entire forum anymore. Just click through the pages. Look for videos and stuff.

On August 03 2013 07:42 jrkirby wrote:
3) How do you have time to read? I haven't had time to read since Highschool.

On August 03 2013 15:04 MarklarMarklarr wrote:
Learn to throw shit away if it doesn't entertain you, learn to skim read, so many writers, even great ones often overdo their ideas. You have to learn that even great writers are often writing poor filler stuff that bore the hell out of you, the really great ones however will use that boring thing to enhance a later more climactic sequence. I remember reading the count of monte cristo at 16, first 250 pages were gripping I read that in a day or two, then there were another 1000 pages of which were filled with ostentatious parisian garbage making me cringe. that took like a month and a half to finish... Still pretty good book, but really, that book taught me to skim read.

On August 04 2013 02:09 babylon wrote:

Dumas got paid by the word, lol. It astonishes me he even managed a readable tale given he was intentionally trying to inflate his word count. >_>

On August 04 2013 02:41 babylon wrote:
There's an author named Steven Brust who's written really good parodies of the d'Artagnon Romances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Viscount_of_Adrilankha. They're fast reads and very entertaining; you should add them to your book list, and read them when you need a break from all that High Lit.

What genre are you writing in?

On August 03 2013 11:05 docvoc wrote:

Depends on where I'm at haha. Seriously though, I'd like to write a novel before I'm 30 and have it published. I don't necessarily want to be a career writer by any means, but I'd like to write well so I can write a novel. More future minded though, I'd like to have a portfolio of professional looking writing to show to a prospective employer also; though it's mostly the novel thing. Also, it's not really forcing myself after I begin to appreciate the book, though I'll admit that some books are definitely forced because of how poorly translated they are, or how much I end up disliking them/how boring they are, but I refuse to not finish them (the only exception being Proust).

I had a life-changing moment reading Man's Fate by Andre Malraux, the book made me love reading. I didn't think of really being serious about being a novel writer until I read Infinite Jest, until then it was this thing that I kinda wanted to do, but had no idea how to go about. After Infinite Jest, I felt like I had to do this, I wanted to do this, I wanted to write, and after reading Infinite Jest and Man's Fate, I kinda realized that I wanted to be able to express myself effectively as a writer. I don't want to be a career writer, but using words to express novel thoughts just sounds too awesome to not learn how to do.

On August 03 2013 15:04 MarklarMarklarr wrote:
Learn to throw shit away if it doesn't entertain you, learn to skim read, so many writers, even great ones often overdo their ideas. You have to learn that even great writers are often writing poor filler stuff that bore the hell out of you, the really great ones however will use that boring thing to enhance a later more climactic sequence. I remember reading the count of monte cristo at 16, first 250 pages were gripping I read that in a day or two, then there were another 1000 pages of which were filled with ostentatious parisian garbage making me cringe. that took like a month and a half to finish... Still pretty good book, but really, that book taught me to skim read.

On August 04 2013 02:59 docvoc wrote:

Looking this over makes me think that Dumas would have either rolled over in his grave with each publishing, or would have laughed about inspiring this. I'm gonna read this lol. I'm in Modernism and Post-modernism. I read two Cubist works and a couple books that I can't tell what they count as (books like The Little Prince are like modernism in a child's book lol). I'll be in those two genre's for a while considering the Le Monde list is almost exclusively French Modernism, Magical Realism, or Post-modernism; good thing for me, I enjoy all of those styles haha.

On August 04 2013 04:40 babylon wrote:

I forgot, but there are two books before the Viscount series, titled The Phoenix Guards (corresponding to The Three Musketeers) and Five Hundred Years After (corr. to Twenty Years After). The Viscount series (three books) corr. to The Vicomte de Bragelonne. They all count as part of the Khaavren Romances cycle.

.... that sounds confusing. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaavren_Romances.

I think you can read them without being familiar with the setting. They're great fun. The style's a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of Dumas. Here's an excerpt from Phoenix Guards discussing the etymology of a city name (Bengloarafurd); it'll give you a good feel for the style and humor.

+ Show Spoiler +

I've never had someone come out and tell me they wanted to write French modernism, magical realism, or post-modernism ever in my life, and I am certain that if you ask published authors these days "what do you like to write?" they probably wouldn't answer in those words. I think those are more literary movements (minus magical realism) whose traits may crop up in any genre vs. what genre you want to write, if that makes sense.

Ultimately, when you want to write a novel (or any sort of story), you have to consider two things: (a.) yourself, and (b.) your audience. The first part is relatively easy; you mass enough stories, and you'll realize soon enough that there are certain plot arcs, certain characters, certain themes and conflicts and frameworks that you keep coming back to and actually enjoy writing(!!!!!)*. The second is much harder to navigate, and I think takes a lot of work, delicacy, and perspective. You will also need to know what audience you are targeting, and you'll realize soon enough that you will undoubtedly have to compromise on certain aspects of your writing to appeal to your audience.

Finally, I will urge you not to get too attached to such things as novel "ideas" if you are concerned about writing an enjoyable novel. They are not the vehicles of a good story. In the end, you are presumably trying to tell a good yarn, otherwise why are you writing a story in the first place and not simply a treatise on French modernism?

*This is very, very important. You can enjoy reading a type of story that you would absolutely hate to write. You can't just say, "Oh, I like to read literary fiction, it must mean that I would like to write literary fiction!"

On August 04 2013 03:07 Jerubaal wrote:


I'm a little puzzled by your reading choices. Kafka and Camus are not exactly who I'd pick for a newer writer to try to emulate. Though they certainly have arresting stories, they are in the realm of classics because of their ideas.

Which brings me to my next point: Expressing novel thoughts through writing requires that you first have novel thoughts.



I think you need to reassess your standards for greatness. Dumas is an entertaining writer, but he is not great. If you are reading something sufficiently complex, there should be no 'skimming'. One does not simply skim Camus. And even if you're not, why are you reading the book if you're just going to skim.

On August 04 2013 12:06 reps)squishy wrote:
hmm play with irl friends and share information verbally is the best way to improve.