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I liked the story and the rendering of the vernacular dialect in dialog was much what I remember from living in rural Oklahoma in my teens 60 or so years ago. I try for that too with limited (in my opinion) success.
The only minor technical problem I saw was the reference to “Casting Off.” It means to untie from the shore so your vessel floats free and he was already navigating between piles of tires and rusty barges. Something you couldn’t do with a line still attached to shore. I was in the navy for 6 years.
I enjoyed The Lady Of The Lake and Fishing Jim’s finding out he got what he wished for only to find it wasn’t what he thought it was. My thinking is he’s going to spend a long time regretting that while trying to catch his next wish.
Thank you again for a cute story.
Stay safe, healthy and enjoy life.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
An interesting story about a game that I’ve never been good at. I can see ahead when I design computer logic, but not in chess. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the series Queens Gambit on Netflix.
I could not find anything I would consider pointing out, it is well structured and tells a neat story. Having read a bunch of history though, I don’t think it was an original move.
Very well told story, I enjoyed it. I’m reading several others too.
I liked your words a great deal and could find nothing technically out of place.
You captured me with the third sentence about the chest binder because one grand daughter used one until he could have them removed. He’s now a very happy young man, 21, but I have trouble using non-gender references. I try but screw it up a lot and apologize, but he says he gets it and is glad I approve of his choice. I’ll never truly understand a families reluctance to accept it.
My oldest son, 64 now, and 3 of my 6 grand daughters, 44 to 21, are gender non-conforming. I’m a 78 year old man and I’ve never been anything but supportive of their choices. I had a problem with my sons friends, but I got over that early and apologized to him several times for being a jerk about it and he’s always said it didn’t bother him because he knew I loved him anyway.
Thank you for putting that in this wonderful little story
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I liked that tale a lot. I read a lot of stories about vampires, werewolves, witches, daemons, etc, but most follow the traditional characteristics and that gets tiresome. I’ve read a few about vampires that helped others because they had a conscience, but I can’t remember the titles or who wrote them. One with a wwerwolf during WW2 that helped, but I can’t remember it’s name either.
I liked the fact that Reginald was a reluctant vampire and tried to change. Gandolph was a neat character too, a real shyster it seems. Did he do this to others to become a landlord over many properties? Maybe sell each just for the money?
The end with Reginald having to live in an abandoned warehouse was a neat touch too.
Thank you again.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🧛♂️🐸🙏🏼
You caught my attention with your first line and it drug me into your story. I only have two small suggestions and that is the word “Scuffle” is a verb and what, I assume it’s a she, is looking down at are the “Scuff” marks left by the scuffle. Also the word “Plangent” made me pause for several seconds before the meaning popped in. You might change that for the flow. These are my suggestions only and it is your story.
What I saw in my mind was a woman that lost a father she loved very deeply. The way you have her describe the snow made me feel the chill she referred to real. I felt cold too. Then her reference to immersing herself in memories to force thoughts of him out brought memories of me doing similar things for months after my wife of 45 years died. I had no problem relating to that.
Thank you again for this. I enjoyed reading it several times.
Stay safe and enjoy life.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I really liked that short tale. I can find nothing I’d offer as advice or fault, and it read very smoothly.
The reason I wanted to comment is that it’s much like how I feel about my partner. My wife of 45 years snuggled against me like that and I always appreciated it. She snored like a HUGE diesel truck, but only turned over and started again if I tried rousing her. She also squirmed and twisted in her sleep and many times I woke with her feet in my face.
I have a new partner now, have for almost six years, but she doesn’t snore or squirm so my sleep is very peaceful. She also likes to snuggle and put her arm across me or hug me which I love. It’s a warm, fuzzy blanket of comfort I can snuggle into. I was 73 and she was 68 when we met and we both feel that what we have will last for as long as we survive. We both lost partners late in life and feel sorry for those that have no one to feel that comfort with.
I have six kids and I remember that pattern vividly so I started with believing she was talking to her son. I’m 78 now and many of the memories are fading away. The last year my wife of 45 years was alive she could remember me, I was there taking care of her, but she’d forgotten me getting on my knees to ask her, and most of our life together. An incredibly sad time for me.
His, “I’ll think about it,” response started me wondering then his referral to her as Sandy and the smile convinced me it wasn’t her son. Her thinking about his response caused a major shift in my belief and the last line hit me like a freight train. I started to cry and still am. One of my daughters and her family lives with me and insists on taking me for appointments. I truly don’t need it, yet, but it makes her feel good and I love her being with me.
That is one of the sweetest and saddest things I’ve read in years. You laid it out perfectly. I’m terrified of getting to that point.
I can find nothing technically out of place.
Thank you again for posting it.
Stay safe and enjoy life.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
Very good thoughts. Like the old saw says, “It’s much better to have memories than regrets when you get older.”
Hopefully your words will prompt some to wear masks and do the social distancing, because if too many don’t we won’t have a society to worry about the social aspects any more.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I like the picture. Seeing a dozen or more perform at the same time is an incredible experience. The drums and chanting get my heart really pumping and my whole body fills with energy. I came to understand the power of a War Dance.
I lived in north eastern Oklahoma for years. Mostly in Muskogee, Wagoner and Tahlequah, but 10 years in Sequoiah State Park when my mother was catering manager at Western Hills Lodge. I graduated from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, the Cherokee nation capitol. For years all I had were Native American friends. White killer and Hayes were the two biggest local families and they had a blood feud going in the older members that had been going on for a hundred years. An interesting time. One brother has lived in Nowata, 50 miles north east of Tulsa, for the last 50 years.
I lived with my grandparents for a year from 10 to 11 in Summerfield, south eastern Oklahoma near Poteau and attended a 1 room school for my 5th or 6th grade.
I have been to many Pow Wow’s and sweat lodge ceremonies.
Thank you for sharing that image.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I can not find anything that I think needs changing. Very good. A marvelous little bit of prose about love.
You caught me with “...her hand resting on my bony shoulder...” because that’s what my partner and I do. She rolls over against me and puts her arm across my chest and all of a sudden the world is okay again. It wakes me and I whisper, “Thank you.” and sometimes she’ll murmur “You’re Welcome,” but like in your words, I’m not sure she’s awake. She says it gives her comfort and she sleeps better. My wife of 45 years and I did that for all of those years before she died. Another found the emancipated bag-of-bones I’d become and convinced me I still had something worth saving and now she does that all the time. I love it.
“Life is a lot better when your with someone who loves you.”
Thank you again.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
That was beautiful, I’m still having trouble writing through the tears. All I can think about now is holding my wife’s hand and having to be drug away by my daughter. I kept saying, “But, she’s still warm.” She was 78 and I was 73. She’d been sick for a while and refused to admit it and an infection in her chest made it very hard to breathe. After me stopping everything, I owned a store, and staying home to try living for her for over a year I was sure she wouldn’t make it, but the reality hit me like a freight train. I’m convinced she finally just gave up fighting it.
What a wonderful piece to read. I never had a father and I’m always moved by stories like yours. What a wonderful thing to write about your Dad. Thank you for sharing it.
I enjoyed it. It was well written and was captured by the first sentence. I wanted to know why he was struggling and out of breath. The next sentence explained that and added the question of why he was running.
Two things I noticed that might warrant another look. One was the line, “Well, I'm not stopping now, I said under my breath.” This is speech and I think it needs quotes around “ Well, I'm not stopping now,” the other was the line, "for at least five minutes." I’ve always been told the first word needs a capitol.
The story held together well Then the guards in the waking scene was a twist I didn’t expect. His reaction and the last line were spot on. It reminded me of a film I saw using Edward Munch’s painting, The Scream. A murderer tries to escape by going into what he thought was an idyllic scene, but winds up in the scream.
Thank you again for the story
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I enjoyed your story, it took me on a roller-coaster ride from the first paragraph where I decided I needed to know why an obvious dweller in current times would think a. Hand scribed and illustrated book written on vellum would have been hidden in an attic for centuries. I got no sense of place from the text and, being American, assumed the US. In England or Europe it would be possible.
My next thoughts were, “Wow, a redo of Wilde’s, A Picture Of Dorian Grey, then that it had been inverted and the picture stayed young while the artist aged. I had a bit of logical problem with him discovering the grey in his comb even though he obviously used a mirror. I vividly remember my first greys at 28 while combing my hair, I used a mirror too.
My thoughts at the end were they’d find a mistake in how he’d used the incantations, but your twist to the sisters caught me completely off guard. I loved that, it brought the tale to life in my mind. It brightened the story into a new thing for me, not just a retelling with a simple twist, but a whole new telling of the tale.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a great place to hang out.
Paul
🐸🙏🏼
I like this piece about two friends and a coffee cake. You have a very good feeling for descriptive words. For instance, “ The emerging leaves of fall danced with such an air of grace one could imagine the swirling colors were dancers leaping through the air.” I can Feel this on a deep level, it’s beautiful. I would change the first “... danced ...” with “... floated ...” then add some wind like, “... grace in the blowing winds one ...” these are suggestions only and my in words, you should use your own for any changes.
In your first sentence the word ‘Decend’ includes the meaning ‘Down’ so it can be eliminated. I’d pull the whole phrase and make it, “It was a chilly morning October 24th and as early rays of light began to coat the inhabitants in a warm glow, the earth woke.” Again, my words as a suggestion only, use your words for any changes.
The last sentences in the paragraph were beautiful, I could see and feel what you described, but two things bothered me. You say, “... beauty only to be beheld by the earliest of risers and the stillest of animals.” I don’t understand the allusion to stillest animals and the “... to be beheld ...” should be just “beheld. Suggestions only again.
There is more I could say, but I’ll stop here and say, thank you for sharing. You have some abilities with words that are going to get you noticed.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹❤️😘🐸🙏🏼
Well, I’d go with the confrontation between two groups; the Educated scientists that are saying the best method to reduce the COVID-19 infection rate is to wear masks, and the “Lesser Educated” trump followers who believe they’re all part of a conspiracy because the mask traps the bacteria you breath out and carbon dioxide.
Supposedly you re-inhale the same bacteria that you just exhaled and it makes you sick and the level of oxygen in your blood decreases because you’re concentrating the carbon dioxide. For some reason they’re incapable of rational thought about it. You just exhaled the bacteria, IT’S PART OF YOU, so how can taking it back in make you sick, and people are doing marathons wearing a mask and if you were worried about oxygen depletion in your blood the fact that none have died from doing it would alleviate the fear.
My take is it’s easier to mouth what you’ve heard than thinking for yourself. They sound like the stupidest people on planet earth.
Good fortune with your contest. I think Flat-Earthers are just another wing of the new Lesser-Educated political party that’s been created. I want nothing to do with a group who works at remaining ignorant. We’re all ignorant about somethings, I can’t think like Stephen Hawking, but I keep trying to understand more. Working at remaining ignorant is a good definition of “Stupidity.”
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I have no criticisms for your poem, just praise. I love what you’ve written.
Physically I’ve gone from a power lifter in my 20’s to needing a walker to stand up because half my spine is fused. I stand like a crippled question mark. I’ll be 78 in a couple weeks and I can feel my mind losing a lot of what I once was.
What you depict terrifies me. All I have left is my mind and memories now and I share them with a wonderful partner, but I’m terrified that I’ll lose more and be a burden to her. I was married for 43 years to a woman that loved me until she died in 2015. I quit working and spent the last two years trying to live for her, but failed. Alzheimer’s and dementia ate her mind then her body.
What you wrote is beautiful even if it does frighten me to think about.
Thank you for sharing your words with us.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🌹🐸🙏🏼
I appreciate your thoughts and comments more than I can express. Know that they are reciprocated in full measure.
This is a wonderful place to be. I appreciate everyone here, all of the comments and ideas I read, and all of the comments I get from those who read my words. I’ve learned as much about writing here as I have in any course or MOOC I’ve taken.
Thank you again. Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
❤️🌹🐸🙏🏼
I liked your story. It has a soft comforting feel when I read it.
There are a couple things I’ll mention. First, put more white space in the text, it makes it a much easier read. Also either indent each first paragraph line or put a blank line between them, again, it makes the reading a lot easier.
Also you could really tighten up the story by Telling less and Showing more. For instance the first paragraph rewritten to “Show” could be;
“Hazel thought she could hear sand grit scraping as she opened her eyes. Squinting eyes saw a heavy, wet snow falling outside the window to the right, the kind that stuck to your boots and turned into huge, clumsy ice feet that tripped you.” It’s only 44 vs 48 words and pulls the reader into her emotions by letting them add all the other details. These are my words and only a suggestion. It is your story and you should use your words.
There are other instances too, but this is an example.
Again, I enjoyed the story. Keep writing, this is a wonderful place to be. Very safe and many who will answer questions and help.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
That’s very good, being a Scott by birth I like the Celtic traditions. I only wear kilts too, I don’t even own a pair of long-sleeved diapers.
One thing I saw you might want to look at before closing time is the repetition of “...black space...” we already know he’s in black space. For me it interrupted the flow.
Just a thought I thought I’d pass on.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s still a wonderful place to hang out.
Paul
🙏🏼🐸
That touched me on a very deep level. In my mind you wrote about my mother. She’s been gone for 31 years, but I still expect her to walk around a corner and say, “Where have you been?” I lie at night sometimes staring into the black void and think about her and everything she did for me and taught me. She had very bad arthritis though and her very wrinkled hands were just knots on the ends of her arms for the last 8 or so years.
That was a wonderful little piece and being an avid stage actor for years and well over a hundred productions that pretty much happened to me when I played Bill Simpson, Gary Merrill’s part in All About Eve, my first stage play. The scene where the ingenue came on to Simpson was difficult, I adored my wife and it seemed wrong to me so it was always clunky until my wife took the young woman playing Eve aside and told her, “Just grab his face and lay one on him.” It startled me into stammering and backing away and the 30 or so people watching applauded, whistled, yelled approval and the director said, “Keep it exactly like that!” I learned how to not expect what I knew was coming from that scene.
I can’t find anything to criticize in it. It caught my mind and took me back to 1977 and doing that play. My wife, gone 5 years now after 45 together, flooded back in and I got to live there for a short time. Thank you so much for that.
Stay safe and enjoy life, it’s a wonderful place to hang out.
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