original_lavi

I am obscenely happy about this story.

I was anxious about it, of course; the only thing I truly liked was the climax; but I was anxious about the majority of it in the middle, which I thought might be vague and pointless building-up which did nothing; I was (justifiably) anxious about the ending, which I thought was totally inappropriate and trite and not at all doing anything to address the main issues of the story. I'm still going to rewrite it and lots of bits, I have feedback which I have not yet incoporated, I'm only changed some typos and wording here and there.

But my professor was extremely complimentary about it, and he is not usually one to go overboard with compliments, etc.; and I mean to work on this story until I'm ready to submit it somewhere. :)

SO! Concrit, yeah, bring it all on.  I know lots of things need lots of tweaking...if you want me to send the Word file to you so you can make comments/corrections throughout, I'll totally do it. :)


( Punctuality )

OKAY, I don't completely hate this.

The one thing significantly different about this story, compared to my others, is that as I wrote it (in three periods, the first at a reasonable time and the second two in the evening/late at night, the two nights before it was due) I kept in mind that I was not turning this into a writing professor; instead it was for a history professor (I submitted it for our material culture project). I don't know if that's what made all the difference; perhaps.

Anyway, this was challenging. Again with the first person, along with a specific, likely rather pretentious style for the ancient setting. I took a Roman History course this semester (though the project was actually for a different history class, which also made it less stressful) and learned a lot from it (including Suetonius' lively details on emperors' reigns, and this awesome sourcebook for all kinds of nifty miniscule details) which I used in the story. It was actually fairly easy to write, until the end.

Arria's story is not fictional; one of Pliny's letters mentions her, her husband, and the story of how she dealt with her son's death during her father's illnes, and then the circumstances of her own death, along with her last words. The rest I filled in; for instance, we don't know the names of any of her children except her namesake. So emotional scenes are emotional, and the simple facts called for a lot, up to which I know I didn't quite meet. But I don't feel too bad about that, since they obviously were quite challenging. I did my best, hopefully they don't suck completely.

Oh, and it's obviously really long. Longest short story I've written yet.

Comments, feedback, please.

( Arria (A Woman's Duty )

My first story this semester for my independent study. I really, really, really don't like it. I think it's empty and pointless. But I would really appreciate feedback, especially of the specific kind relating to what's wrong with the story and what it needs. As well as anything that happened to work.

 There's something charming about having "fuck" as the first word of dialogue in a story.

Coming up: rabid minks.

My last "full-length" short story for the class. I just got back my critiques this morning, but it really needed the least amount of work of any of my short stories this semester. Also, about an hour ago I finally figured out a way to do what I had been pondering all evening (develop a couple characters before I kill them off). Yay.

It's inspired by something I wrote in eighth grade, which I frequently think of as the best thing I've ever written. Not really true...fortunately...but still damn good for eighth grade, and I often wistfully think of the easy, simple way I wrote it. I re-read the original before starting this, and it was hard to break out of the same lines and characters. One in particular slowly, unintentionally, ended up quite different from how I had her in the original - I hope it's read as a subtle and smooth revelation of her true state of mind. Hem.

Just for clarification, it is half-parody. I say half because it started off fully meant to be as much of a parody as the original was, but it ended up being much more serious and dark than I had expected. I also nearly lost sight of my original theme, but fortunately some help of my classmates pointed me to the way to tie it all together.

I don't think I've ever realized before that there are branches and leaves in the background of this icon. W00t.

Our professor gave us a prompt to "capture a picture" - show the entire narrative behind it, in just a couple pages. It's funny, I started mine about one a.m. the day it was due - and I had also just started my NaNo novel (yes, I'm doing that for the first time), so it was an abrupt switch and I actually had to catch myself: WHOA, this is not just for word count, this is for CLASS and a GRADE. Nevertheless - something really interesting happened, and my professor told me afterward that he really thought it was excellent. I do too now, reading it again. It was a little worrisome at first because the theme is so dramatized!high school - but I think I pulled it off. I really like my last three paragraphs.

Also, there is very subtle slash.

About the picture - I do watch foto_decadent  , though I don't have a large appreciation for the really strange stuff in it. I best like the classy, well-done portraits of everyday life. Like this one - it has a number of favorites in it.

So my first real short-story was due on a Thursday - a week or even more in advance, I began an idea (which should appear here later) - and then that Monday in Biology, I heard something fascinating.  So inspirational.  And I decided I had to write it.

There were some difficulties - I had two plot ideas, wanted to use them both, but wasn't sure how to tie them together.  I sort of think it worked; the end gives an idea of their constant lifestyle, anyway.  But I agree with many reactions in how I should have ended it really as it began.

(I do love my beginning, though, and so did my professor.  He applauded it as "cinematic, inventive, and bold."  I was just tired of everyone's wishy-washy openings.)

Oh, and I had no idea my title was already taken.  Was informed by a peer who had written "not an original title" on his copy.

Just wrote this a few weeks ago for my Writing class.  We were restricted to two to three pages (double-spaced), and our prompt was change: as subtle and creative as we could make it.  I thought long and hard, and am rather proud with at least the idea I came up with.

And now I'm actually going to post something more than a hundred words!

If only it was written more recently than a year ago.

Nevertheless.  I like them and want them here.




What I particularly like, re-reading now: The second half of the fourth paragraph, as it gets into identities and things.  And my aversion from too many literally romantic issues.