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WK42
May 26, 2024 17:47:27 GMT
Post by rockefeller on May 26, 2024 17:47:27 GMT
Seems tight enough grammatically with only funny little nits like, Sydney looked eviller at the talk show host," jumping out at me ("eviller" not being an adverb, really not even much of an adjective).
I feel like there's some close-to-the-heart experience behind this cap, but just couldn't get into it. The first section's set in a courtroom, but with little or no input from opposing counsel or the judge. Felt more like a family "gettogether." The POV's Sydney's, but only barely, really closer to objective (fly on the wall) what with all the dialog. The italicized sections confused as to POV. And as tragic as the circumstances, I didn't really care about any of the many characters. I had trouble latching onto a plot. Hard to distinguish between parts set in court and those set on some talk show. Seems like his family (and not just his parents) and the system (school, boot camp etc.) let poor, mentally and physically much abused and diminished Shawn down, but there really is no direction to it, no protags, and only vague antagonists, none I would derive any satisfaction from in seeing punished. I feel a little bad portholing this one. It has heart. Might make a decent novel, with a lesser dialog to narrative ratio, tighter points of view, more description and character building, and with Shawn's and others' stories played out in real time. Usually more is less, but here it could actually be more.
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WK42
Jun 6, 2024 14:20:11 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jun 6, 2024 14:20:11 GMT
So I just took a crack and a quarter at Grayuson's Our Sector is Inhabited cap. Not bad for a professedly first ever attempt at writing fiction. I made it most of the way through page 3 before skimming a little, and almost to page 6 before throwing in the towel. Biggest problem is there's no narrative. Except for the first introductory sentence/paragraph, it's entirely transparently expository dialog. No speech tags even, but which, given, there're only two speakers, probably doesn't matter much. But, dude, you need to look around a little. Climb into one of your character's heads, establish a point of view. All talk with no observation or setting detail, or, even worse, pacing is so wrong as to almost be radical in a "I'm good enough to break the rules with impunity" sort of way. But which you are not. Not yet anyway. From a strictly sci-fi standpoint, I wondered a little how we managed to cross and communicate across so many lightyears with the materials and manpower necessary to colonize these various other worlds... though in all fairness it might have been explained further on in their lengthy conversation.
I more or less stopped creative writing after Lightspeed Magazine kill-contracted an accepted and paid for submission of mine to their Person's of Colo(u)r Destroy SF anthology because I'd told one of the editors I was white (which I'd foolishly thought was a color). It was my first serious brush with wokeness, and it almost cured me of creative reading too. To replace writing, I took up electric guitar (after a 40 year hiatus from classical). I've only been practicing about an hour a day for a few years now, but would not dream of performing for an audience. So your submitting your very first fiction piece for publication is pretty ballsy, I think. Keep it up.
Finally, and as an ornery personal aside, I hate the Shunn format. For me it always made submitting as a writer and reading as an editor a total pain in the ass. So much pointless formatting and unnecessary scrolling. Even in my senescence I can remember your name and the cap's title without seeing it atop every fucking page. So, you get no points for that here.
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WK42
Jun 15, 2024 14:29:30 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jun 15, 2024 14:29:30 GMT
Ms Rocks and I went to "The Happiest Place on Earth" with a bunch of kids and grandkids once. Once. Never again. Hot. Crowded. And, worst of all, endlessly inundated from morning to night with its "Dreams can come true!" mantra. Even the drive from Kissimmee, then parking, sucked. Which brings me to Strasberg's ironically titled cap. Usually when I'm writing these "reviews" I have the cap open on another browser page. Not sure if it's a plus or minus, but this one I remember almost perfectly. So no need. Simply synopsized, a kid who's rendered paraplegic after stepping on a mouse and falling off a ladder while cleaning eavestroughs discovers he can make mucho bucks at Disneyville by accompanying able bodied people posing as his relatives in order to get fast tracked for rides (while idiots like me stand in line for hours to enjoy some nauseating VR experience). His sweet gig goes great until he freaks out and throws pee from his catheter bag on a woman who he discovers is faking disablement to get into the fast lane. His anger and indignation struck me as hypocritical given his whole biz is getting able bodied folk in under false pretenses. But anyway, he's banned for life from mouse world and goes on to make a fortune through his website connecting other "differently abled" people with hookers, an idea he got from a prostitute with a heart of gold who somehow manages to give him wood and even lets him kiss her. So happy happy happy. Maybe even The Happiest Ending on Earth. Didn't like it. But did read it without the need to skim. Also liked the medical details. Plus I'm curious what my upstairs brethren will say about it. So, up it goes for further review.
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WK42
Jul 6, 2024 13:48:16 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 6, 2024 13:48:16 GMT
Been letting this Scream cap settle for so long that, until I just now sat down to give it a look, I'd forgotten I'd read it. It's well penned, grammatically clean, fine voice, competent first person POV, but plot-wise it way oversets the hook. Like for the whole 25 pages, the monster/demon thing (which reminded me of a movie called "The Thing" that I watched a couple times as kid and which was also set in a remote arctic-y place) just gets closer and closer and closer and closer... until in the end it's mutilated everyone but the narrator, who's spared because he (as he believes) is supposed to evangelize its horrible power and accomplishments, or, as I semi-suspect, is himself the beast. So he shoots himself. Anyway, too much build up for a predictable massacre and cop-out bullet in the head. So, as Yoda would say, "Ascend it does not. Though I'm pretty sure it'll find publication elsewhere given this VC's obvious skilzzz.
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WK42
Jul 21, 2024 14:48:30 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Jul 21, 2024 14:48:30 GMT
Our restaurant got burgled, along with every other business here in the mall, early last Thursday morning. Smashed a bunch of windows. Stole our cash registers and liquor. Surveillance vids picked up 5 young immigrant-looking perps. Sadly, such events leak into my editorial endeavors. And I apologize in advance. Anyone attempting to do creative writing in a second language deserves respect, but Mohammed's Evolution cap is so riddled with errors as to be more in need of translation than editing. Almost any sentence pulled at random is a head-scratcher that impedes reading.
E.g.: While Lucy could not hear they felt uncomfortable to say any word at her presence. A comma after "hear" would help a lot. Then change "to say any word at" to "speaking in" and you've nearly got English.
E.g.: Building Lucy he felt like he had returned to the Comodor 64 era but he had only one vote in the board of directors. Here I have no clue what's being said. Seems non sequitur, and not the good kind. But, and particularly irksome to me having cut my teeth on this amazing machine, you spell Commodore-64 wrong every time it's used. E.g.:Lucy chest beat for some time which made her excited then pressed her hands against the ground and lifted her hairy body up. And so on and so on...
So, sorry brother, but most of this I didn't even skim. Life's too short. Sorry for the shit review and critique too, but that's gigo for you. Afraid this leaky boat sails off into the void beyond the Porthole. FYI: Just pasting your works-in-progress into gmail would flag (red or blue underline) a lot of your mistakes and offer possible corrections for your edification and consideration. Afraid this is about as helpful as I can be here.
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WK42
Aug 3, 2024 13:53:24 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Aug 3, 2024 13:53:24 GMT
I read a couple Paris Olympics articles on Zerohedge pertaining to XY genotype boxers, with their greater strength and reach, pummeling XX genotype boxers to tears.
I'm pretty sure I have gynecomastia in my left tit.
Then I read an article about Swiss parents whose teenage daughter, groomed by counsellors and doctors to believe she's a boy, has been removed from them for their refusal to let her be put on puberty blockers.
I tried to get Ms. Rock to fondle it, which I'd say is at least a sweet little AA cup, a bit this morning. She tried, but I could tell it made her nervous.
Creative writing is often about making interesting or unusual connections. I'm a big fan of split narratives which when connected add new dimensions. But I never was able to draw lines between Green's two Joe Kennedy narratives. For me they just stayed two discrete stories, neither particularly engrossing. The 1st person narrator struck me as a little immature or misogynistic or something. But honestly so. So I'm on the fence. The last cap I was unsure of and sent up actually touched The Monkey pursuant to some minor revisions. Or maybe I just want to see what the upstairs beasties make of it. Let it rise.
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WK42
Aug 4, 2024 20:56:16 GMT
Post by rorschalk on Aug 4, 2024 20:56:16 GMT
Another capital venture for the terminal, bravo!
My gmail interface is stupid. Could you please send me back the venture that I sent you so I can get it to Sturge and the Bull?
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