ofallpieces [2006-04-04 06:30:41 +0000 UTC]

I remember reading this with you and going over it as you were writing it. It was a process and it was fun but to this moment it meant something more than that, it meant that we share advice and we share things with eachother even in the early stages of development.

Kind of like if I found out I was pregnant, I would tell you before it was obvious that I was having signs of pregnancy or something. Bad example.


Anyway. Reading this gives me a feeling of content. I can hear your voice, calm and stable in the beginning and narrating, and then quaking a little bit and maybe even a little bit obviously at the really sad parts of the story; but then in the end I imagine it returning to bittersweet calm, where you sound resigned to the fact that maybe a guy isn't right for you at the moment... just before you drift off screen.

Most of the time when I see you in my head it's in an artistic light. I could make a short film out of this essay.

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car1ita [2006-04-02 06:33:41 +0000 UTC]

This makes me want some coffee...

It rambles, but that didn't stop me from re-reading it 3 or 4 times.

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SparrowSong [2006-03-28 04:27:24 +0000 UTC]

I think this is one of your strongest pieces, Sus. Man, I almost never had creative writing assignments in high school, or I’d’ve tried harder in English classes. Have I critiqued your prose before? Okay, quite a bit of what I’m going to say is my opinion, so don’t worry too much about it. I’m also not the most professional critiquer, because if I don’t enjoy myself, critiquing doesn’t get done, while at the same time, I’m pretty nitpicky and my prose critiques get long. I’ll usually tell you if what I’m commenting on is only something minor, though; like I said, quite a bit of my crit is personal preference, and though I’m pedantic, I wouldn’t critique this unless I thought it was good, and I do; I liked this piece a lot.


You’ve got a good, solid opening.

“If hell is other people, then heaven is solitude.”

I think you need ‘than’ here. Than for comparisons, then for time. I think.


“The ugly yellow folded paper, packed inside an ungainly plastic bag, begged to be thrown into a trash bin. It was a useless errand; my surly boss had told me that he was closing the store, soon.”

Too many adjectives, here. You have three descriptors of the paper alone; eight in two sentences (if I count ‘trash’ as describing the bin). I’d suggest reconsidering ‘folded’, ‘ungainly’, and ‘surly’, though it’s up to you, of course; I’d press harder for the removal of ‘folded’ than any of the others.


“The morning had a long way to go before it became afternoon.”

I’d like to see this reworded. It sounds more rambling than the rest of the piece; perhaps tighten it up.


“My thoughts were too muddled to function on anything other than basic levels, so coffee became my goal. Black coffee, a change from my usual light'n'sweet concotions that my father once called "coffee-flavored milkshakes."”

I have a thing against most sentence fragments. If changed, perhaps use ‘My thoughts were too muddled to function on anything other than basic levels, so coffee became my goal: black coffee, a change from my usual light'n'sweet concotions that my father once called "coffee-flavored milkshakes."’ ‘basic’ could also be ‘the most basic’, but I don’t think it matters too much.


“The last of my money went to overpriced caffeine at an undersized hole in the wall.”

I like the over/under contrast.


“I walked on potholed pathways and past broken buildings, finally reaching the last place I wanted to be: the waterfront. A place of bliss turned into pain.”

I like the alliteration, but I’m not so fond of “A place of bliss turned into pain.” Even ‘A place of bliss turned into a place of pain’ sounds better to me, but it’s really a minor grouse.


“I had come in search of the self I had lost in other people, and other people I had nearly lost (a surrogate sister, a boyfriend), even if being there made me want to dive into the Hudson, knowing full well that I cannot swim.”

I like the chiasmus in the first half of the sentence, but the sentence seems overlong to me. I’d suggest splitting it in two, but I’m sure how you’d do that. I would also prefer not to see the parentheses, something like ‘I had come in search of the self I had lost in other people, and other people I had nearly lost: a surrogate sister, a boyfriend,’ perhaps. Again, to pull that off, you might have to split the sentence, and I don’t know how that would work.


“A row of seagulls called to each other, balancing on the cold railing spanning the grey water.”

I just like that for some reason.


“My coffee warmed my palms, but the backs of my hands froze.”

Maybe ‘as’ instead of ‘but’?


“Hoping that the rotting wooden boardwalk wouldn't drop my paranoiac self into the water,”

Adjectives again. I think getting rid of ‘wooden’ would help. If we know it’s rotting, we can guess it’s wooden.


“The coffee burned my mouth, and I wanted to cry; not from the scalding, but from sudden memories that flushed my cheeks.”

I like this, because I can identify.


“My October had been a mess of misunderstandings.”

Nice alliteration.


“I had thought that a night spent warm against the rain in someone else's bed meant something more than a rise in temperature.”

This could probably flow better, but it’s not weak. I’m just nitpicky.


“And I had thought that the best way to pass time involved intoxicating substances. One week in particular proved to me that none of this is true.”

When these are separate, the second sentence leads me to anticipate you expanding on the ‘one week’ in more detail than you do. I’d suggest combining the sentences with ‘but’ as the conjunction.


“The subtle gradations separating friends from lovers from foes, that mutate a good time into a bad trip, have no stability. It was a disillusionment I had not anticipated, a much more whirlwind realization than the slow burn of knowing that I would never be famous, or privileged, or anyone other than myself.”

I’d remove the ‘much’, but that’s me. Keep improving your writing at this rate, we could see you famous yet.


“Thoughts seeped through my too-thin sweatshirt and into my bone marrow.”

I’d suggest removing ‘too-thin’. It stands out too much, to me. The abstraction hasn’t bothered me throughout the piece, but I’m not sure about ‘thoughts’ here; I don’t know how you’d change it, though.


“I deserved company on my waterfront walks. Being there made me think of the boy who told me it was his favorite place. It made me think of how dumb I was to ever believe in his honeyed words, no matter how cloying their sentiments were.”

Something in here hits me wrong. I think it’s mainly in “Being there made me think of the boy who told me it was his favorite place” and could probably be solved by changing the wording to ‘Being there made me think of the boy who told me it was his favorite place, and how dumb I was to ever believe in his honeyed words, no matter how cloying their sentiments were.’ That’s really a matter of personal opinion, though. Also, ‘cloying’ is an awesome word.


“Being there forced me to acknowledge that the blame lay entirely with me for my near-estrangement from Yusra (who may as well be my sister).”

I’d like to see a comma after Yusra, and the parentheses removed.


“She was right: I spend too much time saying that I am not what I have always been. Anxious, overreacting, and desperate. Desperate for love, for attention, for connection.”

I’m not fond of the sentence fragments. Some simple punctuation changes could fix that: ‘She was right. I spent too much time saying that I am not what I have always been: anxious, overreacting, and desperate for love, for attention, for connection.’ I feel weird rewording it for you, though, and the loss of the repetition of ‘desperate’ might not be what you want. Also, ‘spend’ needs to be in past tense with the rest of the piece, maybe ‘I had spent?


”But I was disconnected, right then, from anyone I cared about. It was me and the seagulls, and even the seagulls had better things to do than keep me company.”

Good transition, and I like the seagulls bit quite a lot. Again, I’m identifying; good stuff.


“The last bird flew off over the murky water, and I drained my coffee. I decided I could let myself cry, if it was that important. Nobody would see my cheeks stained a blotchy pink. But I didn't need to cry anymore.”

It sounds a little choppy, Sus. Tighten this, maybe?


Your closing is solid; I like the last sentence and how it subtly lightens the rest of the conclusion, even though it’s a sentence fragment, it works for you. The last paragraph is strong, and the whole thing is well-written. I felt for you, and I identified with the self you present. This is quite good, Sus. *Quite* good.

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