Liked this. The way the sentences flowed reminded me of a reading scheme - obviously the vocabulary and attitudes were at variance with that, but I think that's why I found it funny.
Word for the day: curmudgeon. (Hey. It's a good word.)
Child in the 70s. Teen in the 80s. Face it: you were a pawn in the un-cool game. I think your parents intentionally gave birth to you then, so you'd never get to be a cool, e-dropping, Nietsche quoting, designer clad cool person.
It was an evil master plan.
If it's any comfort, when I was 17, I was completely in awe of this posh girl called Caroline, who was simply terminally blase. Imagine life having no more to impress you with at the age of 17. She was bored by everything. I remember she broke an arm skiing in the Alps and had to go to her Debs dance (equivalent of a prom) in a raw silk gown with a big manky old sling.. and an expression of enuii, of course. Am way less impressed by the memory than I was at the time.
Nice. And I have absolutely no idea which boyband it is about, from the Osmonds through to N'Synch. Not the point I suppose.
My one quibble would be, ironically, that the letter is a bit too articulate for a popstar, and that while a person in that situation might feel the way that letter describes, I think it would be pretty inchoate at the time of breaking away, and for some time after that. Then again, am making some very sweeping prejudicial assumptions about popstar IQ.
The good thing about this story is the understated feeling, like a mourner still in denial. It's very flatly told, and I think that sets up the storyteller as a particular type of person. The description of the alcoholic's behaviour is on the nail.
I think it would read more easily if it were broken up into paragraphs, with a blank line between paragraphs. Those big blocks of text are offputting. There's a stretch of dialogue in the middle of this. Maybe each person speaking, could be a new mini-paragraph?
He could be kind at times but also have the affection of someone who did not give a damn.
I don't understand this sentence. Is the uncle getting affection, or giving affection? If he's giving affection, then surely he doe give a damn?
It's that first sentence, isn't it? Once the page is marked, it's not so scary anymore. Odd, how we all feel that effect. Vividly observed, perfectly evoked.
I read about a professional novelist who used to write the first couple of paragraphs of the next chapter on the momentum of the end of a writing session. That way he didn't have to start from ground zero, on that Dreaded Blank Page.
I found this item via the public reviewing page. What an excellent newsletter!
All of the articles are constructive, and "how to review" by Majestic Dragons is a great point-by-point listing on reviewing technique. With such a checklist, one runs so much less risk of simply ignoring some vital aspect of an item under consideration. (and remembering it later, and feeling daft.)
"What can I say" by Diane Freese, is, however, the item for which I clicked into the newsletter - a subject I have not seen covered elsewhere. The grey tired feeling of reading something, not bad, not anything, the grammar and spelling fine but the topic dull to distraction - what on earth can one usefully say? After all, to quote one of your other articles, perhaps one is simply not part of it's "target audience." This may help in those circumstances. :)
That felt kalaidoscopic (hopefully spelt right) It whirled from intensity to cliche to poetry to prose-with-really-big-margins.. dazzling. Reading it gave that swooping, dizzy, "I'm drunk!" feeling that I suppose the poet was experiencing. Now I look again, the cliche bits were intentional on your part - burgundy lips, blah, blah.
I loved the bits until the narrator started sketching out the disaster of a relationship, and the verse after that where he pictured propositioning her. Problem is, I'm not quite sure why I lost the thread there, though I reread it twice trying to work it out. It's possible that even using cliche deliberately, as you did just ahead of that section, runs the risk of switching the reader off.
Then again, am not a poetry reader. But I hope lots of people have the pleasure of reading this one.
Very nice. It had that arbitrary, dreamlike, fairytale feel. If it hadn't been a fairy tale I would be objecting strongly to the lack of motivation, lol, but the genre works that way.
I especially liked the part where the vamp princess is revealed to be so very much smaller than the victim princess; that was smoothly done. I felt the story overall took too long to tell, but that was the only thing.
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