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This story is a beautiful one, but it's constructed in a choppy way, and there are parts of it that don't ring true. On one hand, you imply that Katy was very much cared for. On the other hand, you act as if nobody really cares. Then, how can her family be very poor when her mother has her own business? They can be struggling but not really poor.
There's a really excellent story in here somewhere, but it's just not coming through yet.
My advice is to get with someone--perhaps, a trusted teacher--and ask advice on how to get the story to shine just as beautifully as the idea behind it.
Other than that, this is a cute, little poem that tells a story in four simple lines.
Did you know that there are hard-copy publications (Saturday Evening Post being one great example) that look for light verse along these lines and pay well!?!
Four lines of rhyme speak volumes. I'd like to know more about Sheena.
I remember how it was after Mike drowned. There were days when life seemed so normal--and, then, it hit me that someone who had become such a special part of my life was now gone from my life.
Yet, I've witnessed at least two occasions when God had him on sunset duty.
I'll have to find what I wrote about that and share it with you soon...
As I read this, a couple of celebrities who have been in the news lately came to mind:
Britney Spears & Anna Nicole Smith
You're so right that there are people with mental illnesses that don't have green hair, three eyes, etc. but they're still hurting on the inside--and it isn't their fault. They didn't choose to be this way.
It's always hard when you never get to say "Goodbye!"
Three times that I can think of when I never got to say "Goodbye!" because I'd been expecting to say "Hello!" instead was when my dad passed away unexpectedly in his sleep just when he was starting to really get well and return home for good from the nursing home; a guy in my high school art class drowned over Memorial Day Weekend 1969 right after we'd exchanged addresses and had expected to stay in touch over the summer; and when I heard the news in 1978 that this really special friend had gotten murdered--right when I was about to invite him to come up for a bazaar at church.
It's always hard to say "Goodbye!" but it's especially hard when it isn't expected.
I'm so happy to see you back here again! It looks as if you've given your port a complete makeover--which shows some serious intentions of hanging around and writing more!
Keep up the great work--and, while you're at it, meet my new friend, russellonline.
Since you're a young person, I think you would be especially interested in what he wrote here:
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I'm off to raid the rest of your port and catch up with you...
I'm going to include a link to this in my JoBlog as well as (a.s.a.p.) on my new website.
Here's a suggestion: Also set something up outside the site such as a website and/or a blog where you can give these people an outside presence as well.
You can also link them as referred by you.
If you have any questions re: how to do anything like this, feel free to send me an e-mail to ask.
Even though you listed this as a fiction story, I have the feeling that this is something that really happened (although you have a date on it showing it to have happened during Thanksgiving of this year, which actually hasn't taken place yet).
If I were rating this as a story ready for publication, I would have rated it less, because you said "gravy bull" instead of "gravy bowl" (or did his gravy actually come in a bull-shaped bowl?), and it seemed to be rushed in places.
However, I rating this as a tribute that was written to somebody--either actually is or else you're writing it as someone might who really needs to share feelings more than turn out the perfect story.
Thinking about it, I might have given it five stars as a professional story after all, because I'm thinking now of a song that was popular when I was in grade school called Leader Of The Pack.
The song starts out asking Betty if that's Jimmy's ring she's wearing and asking how she met him. She tells the story in such a way that it sounds as if Jimmy is alive and they're just dealing with her parents not liking him.
It turns out that she's talking about him after his tragic death.
The song even goes from talking to her girlfriends to where she's addressing the people listening to her song.
I have the lyrics of it here, and I think you'll also be able to see definite comparisons re: how the story is presented.
This is weird and well-written. It kept my attention throughout the entire reading of it--though I'm still not exactly sure what happened in the end. If this were turned into a film, it would be a hair-raiser based on all of the images and feelings.
What it seemed to amount to was that all roads led to death. Even the church where the wedding was supposed to have been helld turned out to be a dilapidated and deserted building with a corpse in it.
There was this feeling throughout of being out-of-control and powerless to correct this situation.
Although there was the action of a story going on, this piece seemed to be more of a symbol of powerlessness than it does an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Remember, though, that there are times that you need to cry instead of holding it in. I've been crying quite a bit off an on for about a day, because I found out that a special friend from my college days committed suicide back in 2001 (ironically, in September of that year, just days before the terrorist attack) after his life had totally spun out-of-control. I still can't believe that this is how Rick would end up. It wouldn't have hurt half as much had I heard that he'd died of cancer or a heart-attack. I'm going out for awhile for now, but I've been working on a tribute to him in one of my blogs. I want people to get to know the Rick whom I knew. Welcome to WDC, and thanks for reading/rating/reviewing my poem. I notice that you joined here on a very special day. Will be back to read more of you as soon as I get out-and-about and play some catch-up.
I don't believe that Jesus has meant for us to go around hating in His name--which isn't the same as saying that Jesus wants us to water down His message and approve of everything going on in our society.
However, He has already brought up how easy it is to have such a log in one's own eye that one can't see straight enough to properly remove the speck of sawdust from the eye of another.
Meaning?
For one thing, meaning it's time we really figure out which is worse? That this guy out West was a homosexual or that a gang of people hanged him because of it.
or
How did we ever get the "bright" idea that we can kill somebody to show that killing is wrong?
or
How can we truly call ourselves "pro-life" when this stance gets replaced at the exit door of the birth canal with apathy--or even, in some cases, hostility?
You've described your friend so beautifully that I feel as if I know her, too.
My mom had a couple of special friends like that. One of them was named Mary Fanchon (never answered to just plain Mary but, instead to Mary Fanchon or Fanchon), and they were bestest friends from the time that they were in first grade until sometime after high school graduation. They were still very close friends after that, but my mom had met her forever friend, Bev, after she had gone to Anderson to work.
I would say that both of them were her best friends, but Aunt Bev, likely, slightly more so.
I suspect that the latter was the one responsible for getting my folks together because she and my dad worked in the same office building at one time--and she was the one who had suggested to my mom that they ought to go bowling one evening (which just happened to be the evening that my dad was there bowling with his league).
Mary Fanchon passed away in her mid-fifties after a courageous battle with lymphomic cancer. Her cancer was discovered in 1973, and she passed away in the spring of 1976.
She left behind the perkiest corpse I've ever seen.
Aunt Bev--who was the maid-of-honor at my folks' wedding back in 1947--passed away a couple of months or so after my dad did. She would have been 86 that September.
The morning that he passed away (Groundhog Day 2004) she had this dream that he'd passed away. She was so glad to wake up and find that it had only been a dream--but, then, it ended up not being a dream after all.
We miss her all of the time, but there are times when we miss her even more--and this time of the year is one of those times, because she and my mom used to have a competition going to see which one would be the first one to spot a robin.
There was this actress on All My Children named Robin Mattson, and I wrote and told her about the competition, so she sent an autographed picture to each one with a note that they now had spotted the Robin.
I wish you and your friend a very long forever friendship!
I'd never before associated a problem like this with picking one's nose.
A very clever take on a habit that I'm sure we all have--though not necessarily in public.
Give me your outside e-mail, and I'll introduce you to Smiley Central--and will share with you all kinds of nose-picking, pot-sitting, cheese-cutting, and upchucking smileys! LOL
Don't you wonder why people find this subject matter to be so funny.
One time when I was in college, this guy hurries past me climbing the stairs (probably, two at a time). The restrooms were alternated between floors such as one floor for one gender with the next for the other.
He left an "aroma" behind that smelled like scorched popcorn, so I wasn't surprised to hear him enter the restroom when he got up on the next floor.
I didn't hear anything else from where I was, so I don't know if he didn't make that much noise or if I was just too far away to hear it.
I know that one girl had the opposite problem where she had to hurry down the stairs in that same building to make it to the restroom.
She was a delicate-looking girl, but you could hear her thundermug sounds out in the hallway.
Speaking of thundermug, I once decided to do a study of bathroom habits--especially, male ones.
I was sitting in this study carrel that was close to the men's restroom at Bracken Library on the Ball State University campus.
When a man would walk by, I'd look him over--then, I'd listen.
In order to pass my test, I would have to hear water running in the sink once the toilet or urinal had been flushed.
I was finding out that, most times, when men were in there for a short time to do number one, most of them didn't wash their hands, but a few of them did.
If men were in there for a longer time to do number two, they usually washed their hands.
Then, this guy goes into the restroom--and did he EVER have the sound-effects! BrrrrrrrrrAAAAP! Blooooooooooooot! Splllllllllooooooooooooottttttt!
He might have just been seated on the throne breaking wind, but it sounded way too liquid for that!
I assumed that something he'd eaten didn't quite agree with him.
Then, I heard him rolling toilet-paper to clean himself up.
Then, the toilet flushed. Within seconds, he was out the door looking very relieved.
Whoa! How about handwashing?
This guy had dropped some very sick kiddos in the pool and, then, cleaned up after them--but didn't thoroughly wash his hands afterwards!?! In fact, he didn't wash his hands period!!!
YEW!
Want to hear something even more amazing?
This guy was a middle-aged faculty member--and a very dignified one at that.
That just goes to prove that even the most educated and proper sort of person can be lacking in hygiene habits!
I want to first thank you for the GPs and for the beautiful feedback you gave me on my poem about russellonline. That means a lot.
This poem reminds me of when I was taking a couple of my goddaughters (Julie and Michelle) around to look at Christmas lights.
Michelle was only about six at the time, and she exclaimed, "These Christmas lights are so beautiful they make me want to cry!" Then she started crying.
I remember getting a similar feeling of longing when looking out at the sunset and hearing the neighbor's baby donkey braying wistfully back when I was around three or four.
Around that same time. I remember being out somewhere with my dad and cousin. I believe we had been to Middletown.
But we went a different route home than I'd thought they would, and I suddenly started crying because I wanted to pass through North Anderson and look at Shadyside Park.
There are just things that affect us this way with a kind of longing that we can barely express for the simple reason that we can't explain it all ourselves.
Let me say that I would like to make this a public review and urge people to read this page-turning story!
Since I don't want to provide any spoilers, I will make private comments to the writer while simply using this review as a means of getting as many people as possible to read this.
I can feel the hairs on my body standing up after reading this, and it will haunt me for a very long time.
At this time, I'm re-designing my Epinions profile, and the next thing I'm going to do is to place a link there to this.
As I read this, I thought about the movie Beaches. Have you ever seen it? If you haven't seen it, watch it when you get the chance, and I think you'll understand what I mean...
This is a very haunting story that feels simultaneously simple and intense.
There is something so pleasant associated with sharing the wonder of the night sky with your dad--yet, so sad because this was where he made his departure official.
This feeling by the main character that even the planets would go wild because her own world was coming to an end blows through me like the cold wind I heard blowing around our house as I lay in bed the night of November 22, 1963 at the age of almost 11.
I give you five stars for honest thoughts well-expressed (check it for typos, but leave the message)--but I give you one star for feeling that your life is so meaningless!
Not to be confused with not validating your feelings!
I validate your feelings! You OWN your feelings, and you have the right to express them. But I hope that life will become better for you--and I believe that it will!
You've taken that first step by putting those feelings out there!
You never know how many lives might be touched by reading what you've written.
Even when your life turns around for you, leave these words out, because they will become that much more meaningful in that it will show that a person who is on the mountaintop had, at one time, dealt with being in the valley and has survived!
If you wish, you could leave it as it is (but correcting your typo in the word "possibility," but I would, perhaps have written it one of the following ways. See what you think...
First option:
Find a place for me in your heart...Open your mind to the possibility of change...Look within yourself for the courage and strength to overcome your fears...Breathe out the disturbances and take in the adventure...You will come across a day in which you'll have the ability to accept yourself for who you are...When you do, refuse to let go--holding on with all that you've ever had and all that you wish to obtain...Pray...Pray to believe...Pray for the most important part of you that you can't seem to identify...Pray to gain all that you've lost...Work...Work to achieve...Work to build all that you've ever managed to destroy...Study...Study to learn...Study to understand the consequences of the different circumstances...Study to have the mind of a genius...And Sleep...Sleep to dream...Sleep to give your inner soul a chance to rise...Sleep to allow the voice within to speak...
Second option (my favorite):
Find a place for me in your heart.
Open your mind to the possibility of change.
Look within yourself for the courage and strength to overcome your fears.
Breathe out the disturbances and take in the adventure.
You will come across a day in which you'll have the ability to accept yourself for who you are. When you do, refuse to let go--holding on with all that you've ever had and all that you wish to obtain.
Pray!
Pray to believe.
Pray for the most important part of you that you can't seem to identify.
Pray to gain all that you've lost.
Work!
Work to achieve.
Work to build all that you've ever managed to destroy.
Study!
Study to learn.
Study to understand the consequences of the different circumstances.
Study to have the mind of a genius.
And...
Sleep!
Sleep to dream.
Sleep to give your inner soul a chance to rise.
Sleep to allow the voice within to speak.
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