So, on Google Drive, in my Writing folder, I have a sub-folder labeled Shorts that has a sub-folder labeled Old.
That’s where this is from. It was written in the winter of 2007 or 2008: I’m not sure which. I only uploaded everything to Google Docs in 2010, because I didn’t want to lose all of the writing I’d done for the writing group I was part of in high school.
So this is how far I’ve come as a writer in the last five years, and contrasts with last week when I posted something just barely finished. It’s also an experiment in how far I’ve come as a person able to objectively critique my own work and not just go hide under a rock.
Apparently this was based on a dream I had. Oh! And I think it was around New Year’s in 2008, as I drew this:
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| Apparently these are the characters? |
later in January 2008.
So, since it’s been so long, we’ll do the first run the way I do first runs on most things: caustically.
I am not sure why I am all dismissive of homelessness except that the perspective character is a sociopath. Also dead bodies under plants are kind of a Japanese thing and I was going for Irish.
In the second section, the second sentence is telling rather than showing and could be tightened. I’m not sure if inconsistent capitalization of Garda was meant to be a character thing or is just a consistency fail.
No idea why it’s so painfully pseudo-British except I think part of the prompt was that I had to include the word ‘chesterfield.’
Lots and lots of telling.
Abrupt shifts! Also telling. Also run-on sentences.
The line about bestiality, and that whole scene, are really awkward. I still find it hard to write those awkward transitions from revelation to calm discussion to acceptance, but fainting is no longer something I tend to use to avoid those transitions.
I don’t think they even read the Glob and Snail in Dublin. I have no idea why I included it.
I think I was trying to do a thing about speech bubbles and fairies seeing all spoken language as speech bubbles, but I don’t think that came across very well, and has no time to sink in before it’s over. Synesthesia is something that interests me, partly because a friend of mine has it with music. Magical synesthesia seemed like the doubleplusgood version of it.
In conclusion: interesting idea, poorly executed.
Eileen Young 