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Review of Art is You & Me  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.5)
Welcome to writing.com. I have only been here less than two months, but it has been interesting and fun' and generally pretty affirming and validating. I am sure you will find it so likewise.

You will soon note that there are a few formatting conventions, failure to follow which will annoy some people. I think that annoyance to be a little bit of overreaction, myself; but conventions are the manners of this (onlinbe) culture, and manners are the grease which keeps friction from rising too high.
Your titles and copyright notices are redundant; the later is routinely added, the former is put in the little boxes before you ever get to the box in which you write the body of your piece, the author is prominent on your portfolio page, as is the date of last editing.

ART IS You & Me

By John Keaton
March 1, 2005

The Elusive Architecture of Emotion and Reality

As an artist (my eldest son is a studio artist, by the way) you are familiar with how baroque style developed into roccoco, the restrained and precise into the florid and excessive. Today's roccoco writing was called "purple prose" when I was learning to write, and it is greatly frowned upon. Especially in an age where there is so much information and so little time to take it all in, we want to pare down our writing to essentials. I find that hard, myself, but it does make for more interesting writing.

For many years, people have asked and I am certain, wondered, what is it that makes me tick? They cannot, or so it seems, to understand my Passion for Art.

Better to be less vague. Describe an instance when this happened. What makes you think they can't understand your passion? Do they have no passions for anything? A concrete example will serve you better. In short, even in writing, you show rather than tell!

This led me to question myself, well, what is that: ask ART? How can it be defined?

See how many unnecessary words there are there?

Your response is somewhat surprising to me, the reader, though, because I would expect after a question about what makes me tick, to look into "who am I?" rather than "What is Art?"

Perhaps better would be to say "What does art mean to me?" and continue ...

Why is it such a huge part of my life? No matter how many times I repeat to myself by saying, “no space here after the quote mark I don't care what people think or say no space here before the comma , there is a deep and resonant voice inside me that knows I must answer that question. Why, I don't know. But, I MUST! If not for others, then at the very least for my own sense of well being.

You owe no one an explanation of why you feel as you do or are who you are, except in the sense that if YOU would like to be better understood and appreciated, then sharing what you think makes you tick is a route to doing so.

So, I decided to find out. That is the purpose of this writing. Above all, honesty is, as we know, the most difficult pill to swallow; yet we all rejoice at its fruition, namely, more honesty. Isn't that the Terrible Beauty that is Art?

None of the above is really relevant and needs to go, although honesty might be added to your list of adjectives (more about that later). This is terribly hard for a writer to do. It is like struggling with a painting that is trying to do something truly creative, and you have something in miind that is wonderful; the trouble is, it doesn't belong in THIS painting! Painting that part OUT is PAINFUL! Sometimes you just have to go paint it on another canvas to preserve it for later inspiration. The same is true for writing. When certain words or ideas are just too good to forget, but really do not contribute anything to what your present purpose is, you gotta cut them; but you CAN move them to another file - a journal, perhaps, like an artist's day book, for later review and expansion.

I have chosen to write this piece as work of art unto itself. Adjectives, more adjectives and flowing attributes to the Muse that moves me. I am blessed with a love for the Sacred Entity. Dare I call her by any other name? My gift is inspiration and I give it freely, as it is given to me.
It is a sacred obligation, like the ocean, a child, and a source.

Unhappily I find the above paragraph the epitome of roccoco prose, flowery beyond either art or need. Art means different things not only to different people, but in differing circumstances. And there is a great difference between bad art and good art, and good art and great art!

Bad art has no particularly purpose, and even when done with some modicum of skill shows nothing of the world. It is velvet Elvises, pointless even when done perfectly. Good art is not merely well-crafted, but says something. It may not be very profound - in writing it can be merely a description of a beautiful day that makes you feel the sun beat upon your face and the wind in your hair - but it has a purpose, it is beautiful and good to look at. It is a welll done but not particularly memorable still life.
Great art goes beyond merely great craftsmanship; in fact in a painting, it may be its imperfections that bring it the last little bit from mere photographic fidelity to greatness! But it has purpose and meaning; moreover it has depth. it's meaning does not merely scratch the surface or sing about how nice the day is; it probes profundity. The Mona Lisa is not the absolute best depiction of a woman ever painted, nor is she the most beautiful woman ever depicted, nor are the colors the most vibrant. In fact, the painting is understated, even quite common in some ways! But into the painting da Vinci has added, (much else, but if nothing else), the smile, subtle and enigmatic, over which people for generations have smiled and spoken and thought and reminisced and imagined and speculated.... It engages people's minds to think deeply; therefore it is a great work of art. In writing it is no different. Understatement makes a more profound point than being drowning the reader in sugar molasses phrases. It allows the subtle to come through, and make its more profound points!

So here, let me suggest that if what follows IS art, you do not have to tell your reader. If it is not, declaring it was your intention to make it art will not make it so.

It is an axiom of successful writing that adjectives be kept to a minimum. In your piece from here on you deliberately flout that advice. THAT IS OKAY because it is purposeful from this point on. It was not okay UP to this point. From here you want to paint a word picture, as it were surrounding the word "art" with words representing all of its connotations and implications, as if one were to paint one's beloved surrounded by items suggestive of his or her character.

The way this is usually done in writing is through the medium of poetry, where every word carries multiple meanings and connotations and is carefully chosen,, even to its placement in a verse, to wring the last possible meaning out of it. This is a kind of attempt at prose poetry. I imagine that writing it was rather helpful, even cathartic for you. For the reader, though, it is overwhelming. There are too many words and concepts piled upon one another, connected indeed to your concept of art and of your artistic temperament, but to each other very little.
It cannot be absorbed. There is apparently random punctuation and captialization (I could find no meaningful patterns) and the pile of words is too high for anyone but the most dedicated to read every word or to stop to think about how each particular word elucidates your meaning. Writing that won't be read is like painting that won't be seen. It may contain profundity like all get-out; but it's still pretty meaningless and purposeless.

Even so, I think there is a more serious problem. Your stated purpose of writing was to open yourself up to people who don't understand you. But what you have done is akin to a Sanskrit speaker, having been asked to explain to an English-only speaker the meaning of his Sanskrit manuscript, obliges with a long, scholarly, detailed explanation - in Sanskrit! To be of any use, he would have to give his explanation in English! In order to explain something of what art means to you, you have to translate your form of art into a form your reader can grasp. If you show this to those who ask you what makes you tick, I would bet anything they would say "yeah, but so what makes you tick?" or something to that effect. Of what point would be a painting, exquisite though it might be, that could only be seen by those whose eyes pick up radio-length waves? To be grasped at all, the radio waves would have to be changed into colors in the visible light spectrum (which is essentially what astronomers do with those gorgeous photos of deep-space nebulae and the like). You have to speak the language of your readers, use their vocabulary and their forms, in order to make an impression.

But don't worry, they wouldn't ask if they didn't care. You'll get other chances. There are resources here (in this piece) for further writing development as well. Show us a series of shorts where the qualities you list (such a long list!) are shown and highlighted. You have given us a glossary, now take the words from the gloassary and paint a word picture with them!
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Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.0)
I had tucked your email away for later looking and have just re-looked at these. There is still some work needed especially on the third essay (a couple of times you said things like THE reason or THE conclusion, when A would have been both truer and smoother reading, for example.)
Since they were originally a single essay perhaps, they seem to be designed as chapters in a book. I don't think most people will respond well to the beginnings of these, though: ("In the last essay we learned...") which sounds both condescending and as if you didn't realize you had written opinion and interpretation, rather than information sent from on high!
Come back to them after awhile and you will probably be able to rewrite these into useful articles for, say, a denominational magazine.

Best wishes
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Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.5)
The reason is that organic molecules are so complex that their formation cannot possibly be explained as being coincidental. This means that they must have been created.

This is a logical fallacy. Just because we cannot explain something does not mean it has no explanation. Much about both God and His creation is still unexplainable by human beings. That means neither thant it has no explanation (God may know very well, evn if we don't) nor that some day people won't have it. (We now know WHY the sun rises and sets - and that IT doesn't, the earth moves. How many years was that an unexplainable secret?

Science can never do more than try to explain HOW God might have created the earth. It can nefver say why. The province of religion is to tell us why, what is the meaning of creation, and not to get bogged down in debates over the mechanisms of creation. Even if God gave us the "recipe," could we understand it?

But there is gyet a bigger problem with your whole thesis. It depends entirely on our NEVER finding (or being a proximate cause for) life to begin. What would the announcement that a scientist had made primitive life in a test tube do to your faith?

Mine would not be affected at all. If God used means accessible to science, one day scientists shall imitate Him as we do in art and music and a thousand other attributes of God. It is not a problem, because my faith depends not on a theory of creation, but in God. God is faithful and certain. Our knowledge is imperfect and uncertain. To put faith in it - either in scientific knowledge OR in our own deductions from religious texts - is to misplace faith!

The theory of evolution defies the existence of god.
This also is both false and illogical. Evolution does not have to exclude God.

Picture this just in your imagination. Two beings decide to create. One sits at the foot of a mountain, and sculpts a man-like figure, claps his hands, and it walks and talks. Meanwhile the other goes to the top of the mountain and tosses off a pebble. One pebble strikes another bumps too more, dilodges a boulder, knocks down a tree starts a landslide here and there, and by the time it all reaches the bottom of the mountain, lo and behold, it walks and talks!

Now which of these two miracles is the greater? For my money, both are pretty amazing; but I cannot see the second as less than the first.

As a piece of writing, technically this is not too bad. As a piece of logic, it leaves a great deal to be desired.

I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all that is good within it. I do not believe that either Bible or Koran provides God's recipe book for making people. Neither is interested in the mechanical details of how God made the world, a matter of which neither we nor the original hearers of our sacred books could have understood if he had done so. Rather it is interested in telling us that GOD was responsible, that God did it because He wanted a being capable of love whom He could love, that while He is sovreign, he allows us to choose whether or not to love Him because without that choice we would be only puppets.

You may be interested in this piece:
 What Kind of Book is the Bible?  (E)
A reader asks if he is off base reading the Bible in a non-literal way.
#963770 by revdbob
I would imagine it applies to the Koran as well as to the Bible.
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Review of Lost From God  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hi Tiger,
This will seem a ittle harsher than you have been accustomed to getting for your poem. That is perhaps because I am treating you as a professional, not as a schoolgirl. Please understand that reviewers' criticisms are not criticisms of YOU.
Your ending is great. Everything in the poem should aim there. Does it all? What doesn't, cut out or rephrase so it does.
This is neither blank nor free verse, therefore your meters need consistency. Scan your lines and be sure vereses in corresponding stanzas at least have the same number of feet. The feel from the first line is that every verse should have only 2 feet.

In that case, the first stanze would reduce to something like this:

Lost in this world,
So far from home.
Why, go through life,
Feeling alone?

Read your stanza and this one, and see how the flow differs, how the second flows much more smoothly off the tongue?

You don't HAVE to make them all 2 feet long of course--they could be 3 or 4, or alternating two and three or three and four; but they should be consistent.

The second stanza then might go:
["God" or "Please" or maybe better nothing at all, but not both]
Show me who
You want me to be;
Because right now
I cannot see.

One reason for the ease of cutting this back to only two feet is because there are so many extra words that carry little extra meaning. A poem needs to be very concise--even more so than good prose. Every word, even every line start, stanza start, change in type of metric foot, capitalization and punctuation should carry as much meaning as possible. Extra words slow it down and distract from the meaning. Does shortening these two stanzas as I have suggested actually lose any meaning?

It's ok if you think it does--I don't KNOW all you were trying to say; I'm just guessing. Whether you like my suggestions or not, try to streamline your poem without losing the imagery you want, but getting rid of extraneous words and keeping your focus where you want to arrive without distractions. And mind the meter! It makes a huge difference in whether your reader is willing to keep following you to the end. Make it flow; readers won't swim upstream!

I'll be happy to look again if you do revise/ Keep after it!
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Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is a great and necessary in/out forum.
There is one suggestion I would make that might make this page even more valuable: put people on their honor to review from this listing at least as many items as they post--perhaps specifically the one, two, or three items at the bottom of the list that are going to be removed due to their additions! I have had items posted here that never got many reviews as a result, and this might increase the numbers as well as hint of responsibility to those who are "takers" not "givers."
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Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.5)
This isn't the clearest of your instruction pages, I'm afraid. Most are very good. Here is a glaring grammatical faux pas.
"If, for any reason, you do not receive referral recognition for bringing someone to the site, unfortunately, there is no way we can verify the referral recognition and it can not be awarded."
That there is no way to verify is not the consequence of not receiving referral recognition, as it would have to be in this if...then construction. What you mean to say it "unfortunately, there is no way we can verify referrals. If the system does not recognize your referral, there is no way it can be rewarded," or some other more clear words.
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Review of What Not to Write  
Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I like it this page. I even read most of the comments from others. Getting people to read is the first job of the writer.

Additional thoughts for your list:
--if can't tell you how to make it better, it doesn't one deserves a 5.0 or that it ought to be publishable; it just means I'm not clever enough, I just have the sense it's not quite right.
--a good reviewer is a good teacher. Good reviewers do not just say something is good or not good, they explain why in a way the reader (or reviewed writer) can understand.

It occurs to me also that although you imply that anyone is qualified to review early on, you do later point out that not everyone really is any good at it. Many, maybe most, don't have the tools or the insight. One would probably have to a read a lot of your reviews to know for sure if you do. But it does help to have a sense of security (especially if people are "paying" for it) to know if

1)You are yourself are publishing regularly or editing professionally
2)You have any particular relevant education that makes you qualified
3)you have endorsements from people who are readily known to be able to recognize the well-qualified to review and teach
4)you can show samples of pre-review work, the review, and the post-review work. It would be of interest to see a sample brought from say 4.0 or 4.5 to publication; a sample of 3.0 to 4.0 or better, and even a sample of a 1.0 or 2.0 that became readable because of your assistance. Naturally you would want to pick good examples to showcase; but if they are atypical examples, that would not be honest or ultimately bode well for your efforts.
Otherwise I use many of the same principles you do myself. The description of what the 1.0-5.0 ratings mean written by StoryMistress are also very helpful to my mind, but that is not your style. Yours is probably closer to what I actually do!
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Review of A Shiny New Dime  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.0)
I think if you do a scansion study of your poem, you'll notice that there is no fixeds regularity to how many feet in a verse or of what kind of feet they are. In modern verse, that's not always fatal, but in rhyming verse especially, consistency is fairly important. Poetry is almost defined by its meter, even when rhyme is lacking, and free verse must have cadence at a minimum, and there are still a number of places where the cadences are broken.

Great poets do this; but as a special technique, not just because they want to suqeeze in an extra word or can't think of anything better. They do it to achieve some special end: to startle the reader, throw him off pace so he'll notice something that is happening at just that moments. So spondees are added to make the reader trudge: "step step step" or anapests to make him run "fluttering merrily by."

Make your variances COUNT for more than you do, and the poetry will improve dramatically.

The general idea of this poem is good, it gives a kind of reminiscnece typical of a would-be grandparent waiting for their own kids to have kids, or laughing to themselves at how new parents still "don't get it." Keep after it.
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Review of The Rest  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.5)
I like the thoughts, but frankly am not so wild about the presentation. I wanted to like this, because as you know, I sent you a request and would have preffered to make you feel good about me. *Frown* Sigh, honesty will kill me yet.

First, meter is very rough. Lines have varying number of feet, yet in other ways this seems a traditional poem in line length and rhyme scheme. I don't believe a good poem disappoints readers' expectations without good reason; but I can see no poetic reason for the variances.

In stanza three, I think a comma after the first period would not only be more grammatical, but would work better.

"Adamant?" It means "demanding" and "insistent" but I've never seen it used in this way. One is adamant toward another, not generally toward oneself unless one has personified one's conscience, for example. It also doesn't really rhyme with "fortunate."

Second verse, third stanza, how about "though sometimes didn't agree" for smoother flow? Though that has three feet, so if you're looking for another foot pattern among your verses and stanzas, you'll have to find another. As it is, I find it awkward without need.

Your repeated use of "daddy," as noun both proper and not, suggests a child's writing, which the rest of the poem also suggests; however you want to suggest that through word choice and image rather than through awkward constructions.

The idea has possibilities, I just don't think you have really lived up to them to the best of your otherwise demonstrable ability.

My primary suggestion: if this doesn't seem to revise very well for you, try starting from scratch with a new approach. Sometimes the two then feed off each other.






this is not a humorous poem, so a humerous non-word like "inspirator" (which if anything would mean a machine that bloews air into your lungs) is out of place.
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Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
This is a character sketch, and for the last 20 or 30 years at least has been a popular form of literary short story. It is quite well done, in my opinion, although I might like to know where the sense of ennui, or pointlessness began--was there any trigger? Was there any turning point? I can't well identify one.

On the other hand, and I suppose I fly in the face of respected opinion on this, I still like stories to have plots and conflicts that are somehow resolved. For me a truly complete story--as opposed to a character sketch, which is certainly a legitimate thing to write--will at least tell me why I care that this person is so deeply depressed! Usually that takes some story in the traditional sense to surround the sketch.
But nobody pays me for my opinions, so why should you listen, right?
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Review of NATURE CALLS ME  
Review by revdbob
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Part of the problem with your poem is the stricture of the contest, I suppose. For example, "wanting" would far better be supplanted by "longing" once the contest is over! "Nature calls, and I hear the shrill whistle/of a faraway train" is incongruous and jarring, since a train is hardly part of nature calling.
But you do have some writing gifts, don't you!
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Review of Ailbhe  
Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
This needs work, I'm afraid. Much is not believable as is. Natural dialogue is hard to do--it takes not only a keen ear to how people actually speak, but the ability to recognize that they often don't speak clearly enough for it to working in writing.

I probably shouldn't do this, but here's a long, sentence by sentence review:

Chapter 1

I just graduated from college and I don’t know where my life will go on from here. I have my teaching degree and a very good job at a private elementary school. My Fiancé

[lower case—no cap]

and I are hoping our wedding plans will go perfect

[adverb—perfectly]

since something happened between our engagement four months ago.

[between your engagement and what? between requires two things to for something to be between them, so whatever happened between your engagement and what else? perhaps you mean it happened TO your engagement, or even to your relationship. or between us in our engagement….]


Billy and I have [had?]

a close and special relationship. Once I discovered I was pregnant, that all changed. Billy was frightened of having a child this early since we were not married. It seemed I was the only person excited about the baby.

“Honey [comma]

I wish you would think this out properly” [comma before the quotation mark]

Mother said, chopping lettuce for a salad.
We usually had a Sunday dinner after church with the family. My mother always said it was a way to keep the family connected.
“Mom please, having a baby is not so bad. You had seven children and you were a great mother.”
I hugged my mother from behind and kissed her cheek.

“Well I’m flattered, but it was different when I was younger Ailbhe.”

[the unusual name I guess is okay. How is it pronounced? I think it is usually not wise to make the reader work too hard too soon, and if the reader is stumbling over the names, it makes it hard to keep their attention. I think that’s one reason more people don’t read the Russian writers—Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are great, but the names are tongue twisters for us in English]

My mother wants to protect me the most since I’ am

[drop the apostrophe]

her youngest child. I was also the most rebellious child in the family. While everyone was making prayers to God and all his good grace,

[you don’t pray to grace, you can thank God for it though]

I was making out with Roby Thompson in the confession booth. My family never knew of my rebellious streak.

I smiled and laughed to myself thinking of the good old days. Mother noticed my happy expression, she brought me the salad bowl and nudged me in the side.

“What are you thinking about, you feeling the joy of motherhood?”

[I suggest putting a ? after “about,” “joy” and “motherhood” are abstracts; how about “Feeling tickled about being a mother?


mother [capitalize—beginning of sentence]

hugged me tightly, rubbing her nose against mine.

I didn’t want to tell my mother I was thinking about the great Sex Roby Thompson and I had on the beach.
“I was just thinking about Billy.” That was the best answer I could think of.
I came back to my senses.
Mother smiled. “He is a good boy isn’t he.”
I laughed and poked my mother on the nose.
“He’s not a boy mama, he’s a man. The best man I’ve ever had in my life.” I happily poured ranch dressing in the salad bowl.

[Do you think she’d be suggesting she’s tried OTHER men in her life at this tender age? How about just “The best man ever!”]

I never expected to be with such a man like Billy Jones. He’s a very conservative guy and he works hard for his money. Billy doesn’t go out and party like myself.

[study your grammar. There is an understood verb after myself—would you say “myself does?” How about “as I” do or did.

I go to night clubs and dance; I go out with my friends and drive to nowhere just for fun. Billy thinks my sense of fun is dangerous; however, I call it exciting because it gives me adrenaline.

[drop “however,” period after ”exciting.” “I get pumped on the adrenaline.”

I guess since he is such a successful lawyer he doesn’t have fun since he doesn’t have time for it. He just WORKS! WORKS! WORKS! All work and no play is what people say, that explains everything about my fiancé.

[This doesn’t sound like the narrator really feels he is the best man ever. This sounds like she’s angry, and they are very different personalities. This may be your point. Is it?]

“Well honey I know you will have a happy marriage.”

[comma before and after Honey capitalized, since it is used as a name. comma before the final quote since the sentence is carried on below. Given the evidence so far, I’d say the mother might really believe they WON’T have a happy marriage.


Mother said with compassion in her voice.
“Why wouldn’t I mother?

[“Mother” is a name here, not a generic noun. Capitalize]

It may get a little rocky because Billy’s a work-aholic,

[workaholic is common enough as a word today you don’t ened the hyphen]

but we will make it though as always.”
[do you mean “make it through?”


Mother and I started setting the table in the dinning room. My mothers

[better would be “my mother has” I think, but if you prefer the contraction it needs an apostrophe: “mother’s”]

had this house since she was married in 1977. It is the stereotypical house in the suburbs, with a white house

[how about “painted white?” Other wise it is a house with a…house]

and a white picket fence. The neighbors are noisy, friendly, and gossip about everything and everyone in town. My family is the odd ball family,

[repeating the word family in the same sentence is not good technique. “My family is the odd ball in the neighborhood. “ New sentence]

we are the gossip of the town. We are an interracial family, while everyone else is white. My mother is from Ireland, she had the red hair, freckles, fit body, and the strong Irish accent to top it off. My father is from Japan, he has black smooth hair, noble,

[noble? what do you mean here? Today we usually use that to refer to character, but you are describing appearance. So what is noble—his nose, his chin? Try another word.]

fluent in Japanese, and is handsome. He has no Japanese accent. I always thought my parents were a weird combination, but they love each other.

My mom and dad met in a parking lot at a club. My father was fifteen and my mother was fourteen. My mom was the damsel in distress and dad was the knight in shining armor. There were two guys harassing my mother in the parking lot, my father just by chance happened to be leaving the club at the time. He did the noble thing and told the men to leave. Of course knowing the assholes they were, they took it upon themselves to prove their manhood. My father boxed in his younger days in Japan, so he knew perfectly well how to defend himself. But these American men couldn’t even put their fists in the right position since they were so drunk. After one punch in the face for one guy and a bloody nose for the other, they ran away like wimps.

[repeat of “one” try “a punch for one guy.” maybe “ran away like the cowards they were”? “I don’t think “wimp” is quite the word you want.

Mother said she was “knocked for six.” Mother said she had her hand on her heart and was panting robustly.
“Oh thank you sir, I never thought those bastards would leave me alone.” My mother said with her strong Irish accent.

[I doubt even Irish 14 year-olds call 15 year olds “Sir”, but if you do, you are using it as a name and it needs caps, and a comma before it.]

Father smiled at my mother.
“Dou-itashimas***e.” Which meant, you’re welcome, in Japanese.
She cocked her head to the side and stared strangely at my father.
“Excuse me sir, but do you speak English?”
“Hai.” Yes.
Mom put her head in her hands. She looked back up to my father irritated.
“For goodness sake, the one good guy I meet and he’s Japanese!” mom hollered at the top of her lungs.
Father laughed and scratched his head.
“I’m sorry ma’m, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Father said. He gained control of his laughter.

[A Japanese MIGHT use ma’am (note correct spelling) but probably not to a 14 year old.]

She crossed her arms, tapping her feet aggressively on the ground.
“Just who do you think you are? I try to be curious and you slam it in my face,” mother said stomping away exasperated. She stopped and turned to face him. “Well I have something for you f***er!” she flipped him the bird and walked away proudly.

[This seems unrealistic. She’s just been saved by this guy and she’s criticizing him already? Even “I meet a good guy and” is awfully soon. Where are the “thanks for helping me out, I was afraid,” etc., etc.? She is not acting like a girl who was impressed.]

My father was surprised by the fire she had in her. Women in his culture never talked like that to man, or anyone else. My father caught up with my feisty mother and apologized. They dated soon after that fiasco at the club.

[hardly a fiasco, but maybe the daughter thinks so]

By 1976 they were engaged, in 1977 they married, and in 1979 my brother was born.

I sat down at the dining table and stared out the window. It was bright and sunny, there was no cloud in the sky. That said to me I had nothing to worry about. However, I felt very sad. I thought of how I soon would be married and would move out of my comfortable house. I’ve grown up here since day one. I whiped

[“wiped”. “whip” is those things you use on horses or what you do to cream, and “whipped” is the past tense of that word. You mean wiped.]

the tears from my eyes and finished setting the table. I’m pregnant at twenty years old. Even though I have a wealthy fiancé, a baby on the way, and an awesome job, I still cannot figure where I’m going. I have a whole new life ahead of me and I don’t know if I want it. How could I, the rebellious party animal, sex goddess, no-strings-attached girl, become an old ball and chain? I don’t know one thing about being a mother or a wife. All my life I’ve had a no strings attached life. Now I have to find a maternity wedding gown.

I was going to look at chapter 2 also, but haven't time. Maybe later. Certainly if this couple hooks up there is potential for lots of conflict--even misery on the part of both.
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88
Review of Lend a Hand  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.0)
Technical comment:
Such statments as these:          "Only when a person has determined to change their life and commits themself..."{/indent} are grammatical travesties based on politically correct ideas. Some of those ideas are justified, but I don't think yet jstifies changing the rule of agreement of number between a pronoun and its antecedent noun. "Oneself" is grammatical and appropriate and even politically correct all at once. This error is repeated in different forms throughout.

         If each one of us that has found happiness or pleasure in life would help just one person find their way then if that person helped one other and the chain kept going imagine what this world would be like in a few years. {/indent}

A long sentence like this has to be punctuated or people become lost. "One person find their...?"to whom does "their" refer? The one person or you, either of which are singular? Comma or "and" is needed between "Way" and "then" separating clauses; put a comma after "going."

         Why do we ignore this one basic fact{/indent}

"truth would be a better word. Facts, per se, are more objective --like "one plus one equals two" and "the sun is hot" than truths. What you have stated comes from God, I would be the last to disagree; but its formulation falls more in the realm of interpretation than of fact and truth I think is the more proper--and more imnportant and effective!--word.

         These teachings, that are idolized by most of the worlds religions, have philosophies that try to tell us treat others the way you want to be treated, help out your fellow human and don't abuse others, other life, or this world we live in. This is not all that religions teach but it is a fundamental practice in most.{/indent}

This is just a badly written paragraph in many many ways. "Idolized," when speaking in religious terms, has connotations and meanings you don't want to suggest (idolatry? The idea itself is worshiped, rather than the God who promotes it?) There are grammatical disagreements of both number and person("us...your"). Teachings do not have philosophies. They may spring from them or illustrate them or even BE them, but they do not "have" them. Were it a fundamental "practice" of all religions, we would be doing them as well as preaching them.


Overall, your point is well taken and can always stand a fresh repeat. How you say it gets the message across, if not as effectively as it might, even with the errors.

But is not quite a "fresh" way of saying these things. It doesn't reach out and say "this person has discovered a new insight about this, a new way of seeing it, that affects how I view myself, the world, truth, prejudice," and/or so forth. There is little to object to in it, but also not enough to demand my attention and to compel me with the force of the argumentand the relevance of its imagery to change anything I do, especially since it present no actual for me to do differently from what I am. You present the malady, you suggest in a too vague way the remedy, but you give no clue as to the means of acquiring or taking the remedy which is also an essential for your piece to be effective.

If you care about this matter, keep revising. Even start from scratch and do it over in a little while
(too soon and this will control the next version).

Keep writing and most importantly, keep thinking!
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89
Review of Solemn Candor  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.0)
Your point, that to free ourselves from prejudices and other learned negative ways of thinking, can free us to see things we would not otherwise see--new beauties, new spiritual heights, new ideas.

On the other hand, to be like a baby can also mean to be free to eat dog poop, as you have noted without seeming to note its implications for your essay. Many people's minds are so open that anything of sense falls out, and dog poop takes its place as easily as sainthood. [The line in which you say this, incidentally, is an absolutely wonderful line! I love the image of reverence associated with it!] Then when the mind snaps shut again, from learning whatever new things it imagines it has "learned," true or not, healthful or not, even ethical or not, it can be sealed into all sorts of absurdity--cult-thinking, irrationality, bizarre behavior. In the spiritual realm, such an "open mind" can lead to Jonesville or David Koresh and company.

Education has a purpose. It is true that learning to color within the lines is limiting, even stifling. But some, freed from the lines, draw so far afield even from paper that there is no art left at all! Babies need education, to learn what is useful, healthful, right. Even when they also learn mistakes--the problem you want to correct--they are usually better off with them than without all the learning connected with them. Would you want anyone freed from the limitations of using a toilet? Yet how very limiting this seems to the child who pees and poos when s/he is full with no worries of where or with what other effect!
And are you so vey sure that a baby is born so moral and good? Have you never realized that the very fact that "we knew nothing of bad, evil, or good, except for what hurt us or pleasured us" implies not that "we cared from our hearts" in a loving sense at all, but that we are utterly self-centered and egotistical> Nothing matters but our own pleasure or pain! What could be a better example, not of love, but of SIN than that?
Love itself, even God's own limitless love, implies limits--not in how much love one gives, but on the fact that one who loves limits oneself! One offers commitment to the beloved, pledges attitude and behavior of love toward them. One ceases, by one's free choice, to be free to be selfish anymore because it is incompatible with love!
It is not that you do not have a good point, nor that there are not qualities of children, even babies, we would do well to emulate or seek to recover--their ability to forgive and forget and yes, to give and receive love among them. But babies learn to love by receiving it, just as we love "because God first loved us." THe image of the baby is asked to carry too heavy a burden. It needs to be an illustrator of a smaller point, of a building block for making your point, not the model of the whole point.
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90
Review of Wraith  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (3.0)
I know not how the spectre of death got in.
----meter needs improvement. Poetry isn't always evenly metered but the more so it is, the better it flows, and this jars me. Maybe " I know not how death's spectre could get in"
"I know not how" is itself kinda stilted. Is "I don't know how" unpalatable?

"but for now, I think I shall stay and delay."

-----Are all contractions unpalatable to you? Changing "I hall" to "I'll" makes it flow smoother.

"I feel an empty hole in my tender stomach's pit."

----I don't know how awfully bad this is, but it has two feet more than usual and one more than almost any other. Does it have a special purpose to be different?

"Safe for now from the phantoms of faded twilight,"
-----Would omitting "the" hurt your line? with it the accent seems to come on "light" instead of "twi"

"...bedroom wall.
They'll creep soulessly in through dark of night."

-----How about dropping the period after wall and changing they'll (so you DON'T hate contractions!) to that?

"Then again, I'll bathe in sunlight until they call."
----"Then again" doesn't do it for me. Then, when? or is it like "on the one hand... then again?" Dual meanings are ideal in poetry, but I don't think either of these really helps. How about "For now I'll bathe..."?

"Night has fallen again and I smell its' foul breath."-----awkward meter--too many unnecessary or unmeaningful changes in foot types throughout

Harpies are always female so "harpy of death/he..."is jarring.

FOr all the difficult spots, there is otential here, and I hope you'll keep working on it. Are you aiming at spooky or foreboding or just a meditation on impending death?
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91
Review of Labels  
Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Ok, you asked for it. I am copying in your piece and interspersing comments

I actually have to say thanks to Jim as he is the one who started off this whole thing. I'm a pretty average individual. I won't even lie about it, I like to think of myself as being a little more than average, but for argument sake, we're going to say I'm normal.

------argument's

He and I got into a conversation about social situations and I brought up labels. Let's face it, I'm sick and tired of them. Particularly at myself. I say this with a sense of humor because I am a well rounded, big hearted, easy going type of girl, but perception is everything.

------Let's face it? Why should I face it? It isn't my problem. Tell me why I should care to bother facing it. This is a rant, you can leave out the phrase altogether and it makes perfect sense.

1. My freshman year in high school- riding the bus, I'm sitting next to a kid my age, who thought it'd be funny to whip out his package and start playing with himself. The jeers set in with comments like, "I'll give you a dollar to touch it." and "Ooooh. Don't you want to kiss it?"

------make a dash with two hyphens --

Sitting in the back of the school bus, trapped between the kid and the window, I sat there attempting to ignore the situation AS A SELF RESPECTING ADULT. When the bus stopped, I climbed out, and directly made my way to the principal's office to report what just happened. The thing nobody was suppose to know about, surprisingly, got shot around school by lunch time and I was labeled "prude" and a "trouble-maker".

------Since this is a rant, especially on the web where they mean you are shouting, the caps are more acceptable than they would be in print; but only because this is a rant. Prefer italics for emphasis.
-------comma after climbed out is ok but unnecessary
------It would make a better link to teh last sentence, I think, to add "I was promised they would not let it be known who had spoken" or "under promise of confidentiality I reported"
-----aside comment: Your response was unusually mature as described. You were naive to think it COULD [how do you insert italics in these letters, I think the codes don't work] be kept quiet. Who else would have made the report. As soon as they heard he had been reported, they knew without being told who had made the report.

My freshman year was hell because I stood up for myself and pressed charges against a guy who had been known to do this particular stunt with other girls. When I confronted one of the girls who knew it had been happening, she refused to do anything because she and her parents went to the same church he and his parents did. NOBODY SPOKE UP!!! His lawyer called me the night before the actual hearing and had the balls to tell me, "Don't you wonder about this young man's future? You're going to wreck it over something like this?"

-----aside comment. The other teen was mistaken; but you should realize that not everyone is able to resist social pressure as you have done. She had to suffer silently, so perhaps she was the greater victim....Your writing will be better received if you show compassion even toward those you disapprove of. Her behavior was age-predictable, actually, for all that it was a mistaken behavior. .... The lawyer was doing his job which is to try to settle for his client. Sometimes they have to take positions they personally abhor inorder to accomplish that end. Whether that is really ethical is worth discussion, but it is required by our legal system as it is. Yes, it is a horrible attitude he expressed, and it is possible he really believed what was done was no big deal. I would have replied, "So this is the sort of behavior YOu do too?" and watched him squirm! *Smile* But for a freshman, you did really well.


-forgive me if I'm wrong but I was the victim, right? My RESPONSIBILITY is to keep other girls from experiencing a similar fate.
-------double hyphen for a dash. Capitalize Forgive--you did in the other paragraphs.

2. I grew up having been molested by my grandfather. It's not something I'm proud of but it's not something I'm going to pretend didn't happen. SEVERAL members of my family kept quiet, pretending it didn't happen and talk about how great a man he is. How important he was to those around him and what a devoted family man and member to the church he was, when he was younger. Their excuses are, "He's changed." and "He's so old now, he wouldn't do that."

-------grammar: pretending....needs to parallel "talk[ing]"
------the sentence beginning "How important" is a fragment. Connect it to the previous sentence with a comma because it is part of a list.
--------you are a member of a church not to it, or how important a member to the church he was would do also.
------their excuses are: "are" seems so weak here. How about "ran like this:" ?
------aside comment: The last line shows how little your family (who represent still the vast majority of families in this) understands psychology, especially of the aged. Even old men don't put away their attitudes or ablls just because they are old. There may not be as MANY hormones as there once were, but they are still there. And things like groping are more attitudinal than hormonal, which is why it is so culpable. Your grandfather was a dirty old man who should be called to account, no question. At the same time, to write coherently and compassionately about the whole system, rather than just your own personal experience and reaction, and also for your own emotional growthm you need to realize how your family comes to be as it is. Your family lives in denial for some reason. It also has feelings that in order for you to relate to them you must understand as well. They do not know your grandfather in the ways YOU know him, but in the ways of which they speak to try so badly to mitigate the situation. They are wrong to try to cover up what he did; but not wrong to realize even grandpa is not unidimensional. As his target, you would naturally not be impressed by these other things; but they did not experience abuse, apparently, but a very different side, and their experience is valid for them also. Nevertheless your point that they should not live in denial is well taken, and their willinngness to let him get away with abuse is unconscionable. Forgiveness does not imply lack of accountability. Furthermore, they are also accountable to you. Their love for Grandpa notwithstanding, they also presumably need to and probably do, as much as they really udnerstand how to, love you. Not having themselves been molested, they are emotionally unaware of how serious that is, and so don't realize how their failing to hold grandpa to account they participate in his abuse and hurt you, whom they also presumably love. Ignorance may be no excuse, but it is powerful and rampant. Your article could help to correct that, and by understanding where those who keep quiet come from (don't rely on this capsule alone but do some research) you can help suggest concrete and effective ways of actually changing situations like yours for the better.


I even tried to let it go and give him the benefit of the doubt that what happened up until I was twelve, had stopped. Then a few years ago, while he was laying in a hospital bed, severely ill, I leaned over to give him a hug and wish him to get well. Even ill, he couldn't resist putting his hand agianst my chest with a grin.

----how about "let it go [and] TO give him the benefit of the doubt [and to believe/convince myself] that...."
---while he was LYING. "laying" is to put something down, or a sexual slang.

I refuse to be left in a room with him, by myself. I refuse to sit next to him or hug him. But I'm attacked with the silent knowledge that for going on sixty eight years, no one did anything. Now, what's the point in pressing charges agianst a frail old man, who daily finds it increasingly more difficult to live? Why didn't others care enough to save me? When they had a chance to?

------"....him [no comma] by myself"
-----attacked? how about "plagued" or "tormented"?
-----aside....there is no point now in pressing charges, which would only make your life difficult at this juncture.Why didn't others care enough? They probably did, but were in denial and did not udnerstand the gravity. This is culpable, but hardly unusual. Forgiveness for their stupidity and guilt, as well as that of your grandfather, will mostly help YOU not to have to carry a burden of guilty remorse at not having been more effective yourself amd of resentment at people who, aftger all, you probably still really love.


However somehow "unforgiving" and "unrelenting" are the labels I've overheard being whispered concerning me.

-----comma after however
-----aside: well, to what extent are those accurate comments. DO you let it go? If not, you are unrelenting. This is not always bad. One should be unrelenting in the pursuit of what is right. Wisdom tells us to find better ways when the ones we have tried heretofore are unsuccessful. ARE you unforgiving. Forgiveness, as mentioned, is as much for your sake as for theirs. Rather than accusation, try education.

-Helping reproduce children doesn't make you a father. Just because you attend church doesn't make you a saint. And just because nobody said anything about what happened, doesn't mean it didn't.

----use double hyphen for dash
----this is an effective conclusion

3. I was recently involved in an armed robbery where a man wearing a mask held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me if the other people in the room didn't hurry up. I get labeled "victim" and "lucky".

-It happened.

------if people are denying it ever happened, which doesn't seem to be the case with those labels, you need to say that. Otherwise as traumatic as this experience was for you it doesn't seem to add anything. Just what's wrong with being called a victim, or lucky? I agree with you, but as a writer you need to tell us WHY. Also in terms of parallelism, this is too short.

I've combated the "ball-busting, man-eating, cold, bitch" labels all my life.

-----you have not spoken of these labels yet. perhaps you need to tell us their context, too.


I'm the complete opposite. If you spent time getting to know me, past the labels I'm a passionate, intelligent, big hearted and very sensitive young woman who despite all of those things, harbors no anger or resentment toward men. Fundamentally understanding that those were unfortunate situations and I also try not let those situations dictate my life.

-----how about beginning something like: "People have no idea how deeply such labels hurt me. And I am not really that way inside ["I'm the complete opposite" isn't true in many perceptions, and flat rejection doesn't help your cause. Also it would be well to ask yourself, however unlikely it may be, if there are any occasions i which you really have appeared mean-spirited. Anger makes one present oneself in unjustifiable extremes sometimes.]
------The sentence beginning "Fundamentally" is a misconnect. The first clause belongs with the previous sentence and makes no grammatical sense where it is. The word "fundamentally" is probably not a good word choice. how about putting a period after "young woman" and beginning a new sentence: "Despite all these really traumatic experiences, I harbor no anger or resentment toward men. I understand that those were unfortunate situations not under my control, and happened because of ignorance and misplaced concern for the perpetrators rather than for me. I [leave out also] try not [add: to] let those situations dictate my life.
-----You make a flat statement about being "passionate, intelligent, etc." Many people do not understand themselves well, and everyone prefers to make their own judgmetn about such things. Can you SHOW us how you are these things in some way without going into too long a story? Otherwise I really have no great quarrel with it as it is.


I write because if you're reading this, I won. And if you've been in any of those situations, I hope you'll win too.

----this really sounds like it ought to be more dramatic a statement than it actually is. What did you win? Tell us you have self-respect and a determination to live a positive life and to share your experiences and education those who fail to understand the dynamics of situations like this. And do some research.

Of course, a ranter by definition almost has done no research. To publish and help others, it needs to move beyond a rant.

RevdBob

Go ahead. Ask questions. Evaluate the answers, take advantage of what's useful to you in them, and ask more questions. There is no end to the process until there are no more questions and no more answers and you are happy with the results.
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Review of We Three  
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (4.5)
I like your poem very much. The grammarian in me cringes, though, at the single use of "thee" instead of "you." All the rest of the poem is in modern English except that one word. Perhaps you are making an oblique reference to Browning or to the King James Bible; but I think it would be a better poem using "you."

I haven't very many GPs, but I'm told it's the thought that counts.
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93
Review of Poetic Insanity  
Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Good for you! Invention is the mother of necessity, as they (don't) say, and yours made it necessary, all against my will, to add a line or three of nonsense to what, since God is good, will never, ever be published or seen again once you remove it from this site!
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Review of Noticing Newbies  
Review by revdbob
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Nice intro. I think, assuming your first para was sincere, I wouldn't have led with it. But for this purpose, what the heck. THe glaring errors were probably just typos, but we notice those things around here. "alot" "critisizm," "foreward." Any that were misspellings rather than typos are rather serious spelling errors for either a writer or a teacher--better work on upgrading your natural spelling if you can; but at the least DO THE SPELLCHECK! Also, though, check out the guide for ratings. Many people give unjustifiably high ratings. I don't, so this is very good.
95
95
Review by revdbob
Rated: E | (5.0)
Storymistress, while I think you have usually done a good job in your explanations of writing.com's features, I like this explanation better than most. It is very clear, it is formatted well (spaces and bullets), points are brief, they emphasize in a very fine teacher's style HOW to be a good critic, especially at this level where many are not yet published pros, they show compassion for the neophyte and the below average writer (well, by definition, HALF of us HAVE to be below average, don't we?) without discouraging them or the reviewer. It teaches not only the art of an appropriate review, but something of the art of good human relationships as well!
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