It was so easy
Posted on 08/17/2006 8:36:45 PM PDT by Number57
I've had this story worked out in my mind for going on twenty years. 1989. But now... I am stuck. I started a book based on it, but I'm no writer, obviously. I constantly re-read and edit, and re-read and edit more.
Probably because I've posted part of the story on sites that critique writing.
Anyway. I've hit a wall. A large brick wall. I've since stopped editing my own stuff, but try as I might, I can't write another chapter that I'm okay with. How do you, in your experience, get past it? I'll appreciate any help anyone can offer.
Oh yea! I remember the work involved writing term papers in school and readable reports when desk bound in the Army.
Thank you God for inventing the word processor!
It really was fun, typing.
Computing kinda has less soul.
The house was old, but not nearly as old as this rutted old driveway. The original house burned to the ground more than eighty years back, as had the house before that. The driveway out-dated them both, though in reality it was little more than a trail. Rutted and twisting, it snaked through the woods for more than half a mile before letting out onto Paige Rd.
Tim pumped the brakes and eased the truck slowly forward until he felt the familiar dip of the front end, meaning the front tire on the driver's side had rolled into a small pot-hole at the end of the drive. This was Tim's parking brake. With the truck stopped, he put the tranny in neutral and left it idling. He stepped out and walked to the mailbox, enjoying the quiet of the area.
Yeah. I'm a joke.
Wow. Thanks.
I still use a keyboard, but changes are a lot easier to make. Now, I can type and read it – and instantly (or a week later) make changes. It is far less stressful than retyping a whole page to change one line. It also allows me to take meaningless flights of fancy on my current effort without the knowledge that my wastebasket will be quickly filled!
The disadvantage is that I am less careful with my initial write.
"Probably because I've posted part of the story on sites that critique writing."
I think you're onto something there. If Hemingway or Fitzgerald had submitted chapters to the writing experts, do you think their novels ever would have gotten to the publishing stage?
What fell out surprised him, though it shouldn't have. Out of the handkerchief fell a small ring. His alter ego offered the ring to him, "go ahead, look at it closer." He took the ring, and examined it, knowing well what he would find, yet not believing his eyes when he found it. Inside, the ring was inscribed "My promise to you," with his and her initials, and a date...a date he had promised himself he would do his best to forget. And yet, there was no denying it, it had come back to him, in the form of a ring, being held by a younger version of himself. He struggled to find his voice, then asked "why have you come here?" The young man replied, "I have come here, seeking my past, so that I can find my destiny." He laughed, a bitter laugh, bitter like that shot of cheap tequila so many years ago, that had set in motion the events that would bring him to meet this young man who could only be his son in a dark street in Seattle. He asked the young man, "do you really wish this to be your destiny? I am sure you can do much better." The young man replied, "no. I am sure I can do a lot worse...Father."
ping
Father-a word he never had associated with himself drunk or sober. He slowly turned away from the young man and the evidence of a promise he held in his open hand. For a brief moment in time he was taken back to when he was a young man of thirty and she an average looking woman of 22. Nothing to claim bragging rights with your buddies, but, not bad looking either. Rain, rain, rain, that's all the hell it did in Seattle and he was glad to leave it behind. Looking back over his shoulder he imagined the young man to be in his early twenties. Still wet behind the ears and not yet cynical about the world around him. That'll come in time he told himself, it always does. At 52, years of hard drinking and hard living had added 15 years to his weathered, wrinkled face. As they say, time was not good to him. Get outta here, boy he yelled at the young man. I gotta lock up, tomorrows Saturday, the busiest day of the week and all the fat old biddies with cigarettes hanging from their lips and the young mothers who never heard the phrase, control your kids, will come storming through those doors. The young man made his way to the double doors, pushed one half-way open, then stopped and turned and said.....
All stories can be successfully ended with this phrase:
"Thank goodness it was only a dream!"
Don't we all?
But you can call me Ishmael.
The End.
should irk = ilk?
Wait that's Harry Potter. Sorry.
Marlowe scratched his head, "A "fulsome" vocabulary, huh?" he muttered, holding back a laugh. He slid the word into his handy Mozilla Free dictionary search engine and then threw the definition at nopardons' feet pointing his finger at the obvious usage problem. "It's too bad you don't know how to use it."
ful·some (f
l
s
m)
Ok, I've been standing up for you, but here comes some "constructive" criticism. The use of four letter words, or their three letter abbreviations, is not a literary device that I find appealing. Using offensive curse words in a novel repeatedly ( as you did in your sample chapter) IMO shows a lack of imagination. I often complain that in the movies it seems that the gruff characters are always challenged with the fact that they only have one adjective in their vocabulary and tend to use it to describe every noun that they utter whether with or without contempt.
When I pick up a book and find two or three four letter words on the first or second page I assume that the author is either vulgar or lazy. Too often an author will simply make his character appear to be a tough guy by giving him a vocabulary that contains an inordinate amount of "four letter" references to sexual intercourse with one's mother or oral copulation or other such obscenities.
So my advice to you is to temper the four letter words both in your postings on free republic and your character development. Characters who do not constantly use curse words are usually more interesting than those who do, both in real life and in fiction.
Carry on.
Don't feel bad. J. D. Salinger hasn't done squat since Catcher In the Rye back in 1951.
(actually he didn't DO squat before that either. he's a one hit wonder)
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