/lit/ - Literature

>>3815907
I don't feel like it. Everything I've put down for my novel in the last week has been crap.

Venus lay pale on bed; her body bare and beautiful. A statue suspended in motion: red lips parted, golden hair on white sheets, the sheets a little pink from the blood. Awful, yet... awful.

Her bare breasts, two pale mountains, frame a rose red gunshot petal. Arms outstretched on either side and disappearing so abruptly that they can almost be seen floating there in pink pantomime; instead descending into red nothing. In my mind, a single wet rose petal dropped on a vertically endless stone field, while two torrents of blood gushed along each side.

it's about a detective seeing a murdered girl with arms cut off

>>3815923

>Awful, yet... awful.
that sentence took awhile to "get"... too long I think. It just seems sort of awkward and not clear enough first read. I just read it as: "It was awful, and it was awful"

>In my mind, a single wet rose petal dropped on a vertically endless stone field, while two torrents of blood gushed along each side.
I also don't really understand the imagery here. "vertically endless stone field"? It was hard and not natural for me to imagine that, as was a rose petal dropping on it, and torrents of blood gushing along either side

But the rest i thought was very good

>>3815907

I love to love you baby
I love to love you baby.

I'm feelin' sexy
I wanna hear you say my name boy
If you can reach me
You can feel my burning flame

I'm feelin kind of n-a-s-t-y
I just might take you home with me
Baby the minute i feel your energy
Your vibe's just taken over me
Start feelin so crazy babe
Lately, I feel the funk coming over me
I don't know what's gotten into me
The rhythm's got me feelin so crazy babe

Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
We're gonna turn this party out
I know you want my body
Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
I see you look me up and down
And i came to party

You're so sexy, tonight i am all yours boy
The way your body moves across the floor
You got me feelin n-a-s-t-y
I just might take you home with me

Baby the minute i feel your energy
The vibe's just taken over me
Start feelin so crazy babe
Lately, I feel the funk coming over me
I don't know what's gotten into me
The rhythm's got me feelin so crazy babe

Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
We're gonna turn this party out
I know you want my body
Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
I see you look me up and down
And i came to party

I love to love you baby
I love to love you baby
I love to love you baby
I love to love you baby

Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
We're gonna turn this party out
I know you want my body
Tonight i'll be your naughty girl
I'm callin all my girls
I see you look me up and down
And i came to party

[repeat to end]

>>3815939

these lyrics capture the "vibe" of todays popular music so well you could probably send it in to a record label, and they could turn it into a song.

If that's what you were aiming for, well done.

>>3815936
>>Awful, yet... awful.
>that sentence took awhile to "get"... too long I think. It just seems sort of awkward and not clear enough first read. I just read it as: "It was awful, and it was awful"

Don't agree, I liked it.

Spiralling downward
Ready to collapse at any moment
I needed guidance, direction
I was always warm and kind, still am
Inside, but outside
Just a computer running through its lines of code,
Purely Boolean
What did you expect to happen when you broke a child
I was lost
Alone, abandoned by everyone
I needed guidance, direction
One hand was judged,the other..
Cut off
Two years, two years
Alone in my mind
I was still in my adolescence
No fatherly presence
Nor motherly love
When I needed them most
They judged me
When I needed them most
They cut me off
Whispers, murmurs
They thought I couldn't hear
I was just a child, still am

thoughts?

I would write... But then I would count my syllables and worry about misspells that my word-processor won't pick up. The grammatical errors that it doesn't look for scare me. Maybe, if everyone was a word-processor, We would talk with justness. Unadulterated truth. I might say, "This sentence is false", And you would find no problem with it, until you solved it. Then you would be dead. What a world, where words can kill. But do we not live in one already?
The Bossman sent me to bash someone's head in.
I don't care. His word is law. I’m not a killer, that’s the thing. He says to do, what else can I do but obey?
The Plumber sent me to smash the bottleneck. She was my wife. I don't care.
She was a kink in the mass of wires and pipes that make the world go round. I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t care.
Last night, I sent myself to do something. I cared a good deal, but it wouldn’t be done. Why should it get done? I would like some validation that I'm doing the right thing, please! Some direction from up there. Corporate sponsorship.
Ah well.
Someday the Technician will send someone to bash my head in as well. Someday, I’ll be obsolete, no longer nimble in mind and body. Sentences will kill me, imagine that! It'll take brute force in the days to come. Oh, I shall miss this life, my thrice-encased steel shell. My head comprised of LED’s.
Yes, he shall send someone to bash them in.
And they will die, and I will die.
And then we'll be done.
Oh, to scribe for just one more person!
That is my only lamentation.

Because who doesn't love 1984.

>>3815954
make the last line the first line, delete everything else, and go from there.

>>3815939
I CAN FEEL THE SONG IN MY HEAD

“Stop!” Susana cries. She fumbles in her purse for change and shakes Cleo by the arm, “Cleo? Wake up, this is it!”
“Huh?” Cleo mutters, groggily.
“We're here, c'mon! Let's go!”
“What? We're where?”
“The Athena Palladium,” Susana says from behind her shoulder, as she steps out of the cab. Cleo perks up and rolls out of the cab, rain pounding on her.
“Hey, crap! What time is it?”
“Don't worry, I see Jamaica just over there”
Susana maneuvers through the crowd of well dressed socialites mingling in front of the theater entrance, Cleo following close behind. They find Jamiaca leaning against one of the 36 columns upholding the neo-baroque awning, safe from the rain, sucking absent-mindedly at the sticky end of a hashish stick, in a lengthy black dress with trimmed panther-coat lining.
“Well, well, see who's rolled up.” Jamaica says, with an exhale of purple-citrus smoke.
“Good to see you, and, hey,” Susana whips out three tickets from her denim 5-pocket.
“Girl, you did good work. Were they scalped?”
“Nope, found them in Amazon.”
Jamaica raises her head and laughs, releasing wisps of red-mahogany into the night air.
Cleo chimes in, “I don't think that thing is allowed in this city, like legally today, publicly, you know.” She punches Jamaica's asymmetrically exposed shoulder playfully.
“Sugar, this little number isn't diddly compared to what's lined up for tonight.” Jamaica jerks a thumb backwards at the double bill-- Digg Dgravenszein's Emmanuelle 2000: Jewel of Emmanuelle // Bruno Fantano's La Belva dalle calda pelle (Emmanuelle in the Desert, Lost).
“Hnk.” Cleo holds back vomit, stopping the bile from reaching past the back of her mouth. 'This doesn't seem right...' she thinks, but Susana and Jamaica are already piling through the double doors. Susana turns and winks at Cleo, who feels empty and can't manage a response.

>>3815959
you honestly think so? i made this in about 30min for a g12 english class

>>3815973
haven't you posted this before?
Anyway, I like it.

http://implyingopinions.blogspot.se/
Never written fiction in my entire life.

I need honest criticism for my ~1000 word short story.

http://pastebin.com/sYu9yuB0

>>3815936
I see what you're saying, bro. I'll probably get rid of that "awful, yet... awful" and replace it with something akin to "[full of awe], yet awful". I was trying to get across the idea of something grotesque and disturbing, yet full of the aesthetically sublime. A vision from which one recoils because it is so beautiful (and maybe beauty is not the right word here, but I hope you know what I mean).

As far as "vertically" goes, yeah whoops, I can see how that can be misunderstood; I kind of facepalmed in retrospect at what I wrote. I meant vertically as in 'stretching out before me', not a vertical monolith as in a space odyssey, lol. I didn't want to say 'it's endless, but you know, here's a river'.

Thanks for your critique.

>>3815923
I like this
>Venus lay pale on bed; her body bare and beautiful

I don't like this
>A statue suspended in motion
No NO NO i cant let this go change it
>Her bare breasts, two pale mountains, frame a rose red gunshot petal.
I like the image but I suggest "Her bare breast cast shadows like two pale mountains framing the blooming red rose gunshot wound ."
>In my mind, a single wet rose petal dropped on a vertically endless stone field, while two torrents of blood gushed along each side.
ts just unnecessary and confusing
>Awful, yet... awful.
that's awful. Try "Awful yet i am full of awe"

>>3815986
I posted it the other night. Thanks. It's for a class, a group project where we alternate writing chapters, which is really stupid. I'm pissed though, I was trying to push it in a simple theme of post-college sorority girls jumping into the big city, and slowly getting their idealized image of it shattered as they discover the grimy underneath, basic Cronenberg bite, but now I see Bleeding Edge's first page is released and Pynchon has already pulled off the overly sincere idiom-laden tongue-in-cheek innocence way better than I ever could.
I don't know where to take the whole theater shit, I realize I've no idea how to write a movie or a play. I think I'm just going to end this chapter with horror, Jamaica turning into a panther and trying to kill the two of them or some shit.
There's 4 more to go, and I've got the last one. I want it to end it with Cleo driving a "beater" down the highway escaping the city, one arm bleeding wrapped in her shirt, sobbing as she steers with the other arm into the setting sun. Susana either already dead or lying in the backseat, dying. The last sentence has them laughing, delirious and free, scared but also excited for what lays ahead. I fucking hate writing.

Wrote this forever ago and just want some feedback on it...

http://pastebin.com/tEY1T10G

Jessica turned up her headphones to full volume. The sound of the cars, the people, and ambience of the city vanished as the music overtook her soundscape. She began walking at a faster pace as the energetic beat of the music motivated her. She hurried past the endless waves of faces, all unique, all a tribute to the multiculturalism the city had achieved. But her attention was only fixated on one point: straight ahead of her. She continued on, past endless city blocks, only stopping for red traffic lights or the occasional blockage of the sidewalk by people. And after what seemed like only a few minutes, too short a time, she was at the apartment. Number 93759. The door to it was painted red. She opened it with difficulty, it was an extremely heavy door. The lobby of the apartment was very plain. There were white walls, an elevator straight ahead, and various other doors. She took the elevator up to the floor level which she knew was the one she needed to visit. The elevator felt like it could break from its wire bearings and fall any moment. She urged the elevator on with her mind (to no avail), eager to exit the dangerous piece of work. When the doors finally slid open, she was on the top floor. She stepped out an did a quick scan of the hallway, it seemed no one was around. She hurried to the door she knew she was the one, and opened it. Inside was exactly what she expected.

Thoughts?

>>3815907
The bottle was finished but i was not. I suckled on the glass as if it were my mothers nipple. Empty but for the promise of scattered fumes and condensation. The elixir was gone. That which promised to twist my mind into a more mailable state. A Form more pleasing to me , more suggestible to others, more masculine to women, more jovial to men, and less weighed down by morals and consequences. Now lost in reality with no hope of escape i splayed my limbs over the cold linoleum and tried to focus my mind on more fruitful pursuits. My mind virtually accounted my balances, my excesses, and arrived at the conclusion that if my karmic value was right then my jacket pocket should have enough change to see me right once more.

>>3815973, here

I'm going to plagiarize this:
>>3816065
>She hurried past the endless waves of faces, all unique, all a tribute to the multiculturalism the city had achieved
This line especially. Thanks. You mean to say apartment building or complex, not apartment, which refers to the actual domestic housing. It seems like the Number would be at the door at the end, not the name of the building, unless you're trying to pull some dystopic-utopia shit. I called my complex "Pheonix Apt". Later I was reading pkd's Ubik, and the apartments the protagonist was living in was named Pheonix. Trippy.
What did she expect? In mine, Cleo slips a smartphone under the door and starts recording, because she's a journalist (my teacher told me slipping smartphones under doors is unrealistic because in NYC they have to worry about crime). Inside a few people are shooting up "buphedrone", a thick, honeyish substance that makes Hoge vomit onto the table. Cleo can't see this, of course, because it's just an audio recording, but that's okay because it's magical realism.

>>3816042
Please tell me your image is a lie. [spoiler[Please

>>3815973
1st time reading it and i love it
not sure what a neo baroque style awning would look like but sounds cool, and thats what matters
i assume this is the future
really? Emmanuelle? that is something my father watched in the 80's. is this supposed to be the 80'sor the future i get them confused so much cause of "back to the future"
also whats a hashstick

I'm taking a break from the poetry to work on a novel about my years working in the Post Office.

>>3816054
OMG i really liked it
At first it was very beta and something i heard a thousand time but as soon as i read “Well, you’d be surprised at how powerful you feel after you destroy something beautiful.”
I laughed and then felt very contemplative
9/10 she should have been blonde its more stereotypical

Any screen fags?

>>3816118
Nope. I'm into it, I don't know why people react so negatively. The voice feels much closer to Dellilo's than Pynchon's (barring inherent vice), which I thought is exciting. It's only one page, and I've enough faith in Pynchon to pull off whatever he plans to attempt.

>>3816122
Ah, see it's Emmanuelle 2000, a 21st century Emmanuelle revival. Hash stick is a stick made of hashish. Great story, by the way, a little weird but in a good way it almost gave me a boner :=) but what does splay mean?

Excerpt from 'planet of the japs' (working title)

Jay soaked in the waters of the hot spring, satisfied with the relatively obscene amount of cash he had stolen. These springs did not come cheap, especially to foreigners, but the bills he had grabbed inside the crashed plane turned out to be in tens of thousands. Being a non-confederate planet, it would be difficult to exchange this money for more regular currency abroad, and so his initial plan to leave as soon as possible had eroded. The planet was a big place, he thought, and with no idea where to search it would be impossible for the Yakuza to find him.

Chirping crickets complimented the full moon and deserted spring. The chalet was a short walk away, and behind him he could see the mountain that dominated the center of the country. The tourist industry could boom if the word got out and the tensions between the Confederates and the Wheel ran down. The government had apparently been neglecting it as of late; he had gotten frightened looks from the hostess when he, a long haired, bearded foreigner, had entered their inn in the late evening; but his cash seemed to placate her. She had also, through a series of grunts, broken attempts at his language, and exaggerated hand gestures made it a point to check him for tattoos, which he assumed was some manner of cultural tradition. Only when finding him clean had she agreed to let him stay.

He decided he had pruned for long enough and exited the bath, removing the towel from his head and wrapping it around his waist. Piped music emanated from hidden speakers as he moved aside a sliding door and entered the chalet. Jay would spend the night here, then grab the Wasp and make it to Tanitsu in the morning. He was looking forward to a night on the town.

>>3815993
OMG bro i just started reading your homework and read "escalating the roof of the world" i burst out laughing i am at work so this came off as odd but don't worry i will keep reading. u got grammar issues just so u know

>>3816054

This was pretty good. The use of "would" in your sentences gives it a cool feel? If you know what I mean

>>3816148
As in screenplays? I don't have any of those but I do have a stage play to offer

>>3816178
Let's see it

>>3816163
It's not my homework, and I'm clearly not the only one here with "grammar issues".

>>3816192
Here's a part
http://pastebin.com/LSR73CzU

>>3816065
I loved how u portrayed jogging in the city its exactly what i experience but i don't know what soundscape is.
But "wire bearings" that doesn't exist they are steel ball bearings with a wire which make a pulley.
"floor level " i assume is a typo
>>3816113
I agree with most your notes but u lost me when u started talking about Cleo i get the magical realism of seeing what u expect when u hear what u expect. Also i live in NYC and there is no way u could slide anything thicker then paper under any apt door but mics don't necessary need to be in the same room since they pick up vibrations

>>3816113

Thanks,

what she was expecting was a DEAD BODY, because the twist would have been that she was part of a crime organization. But really I only made that up a few minutes ago and i will never release the full story so it was sort of useless stopping the story there.

>>3816152
splay is to spread out
so its modern day? also hash in a joint a blunt or just a stick completely of hash held together by shear awesomeness
sorry but "great" doesn't help me and its not so much a story as a self analysis. thanx for the positivity. Also why almost whats sexual about it? Also was the line "see me right once more" easily understood to mean i am going to get more booze

>>3816015
>>3816096
>>3816122
>>3816146
>>3816163
>>3816216
>>3816252

Oh God, just stop posting you colossal faggot. You can't even spell, you have no business giving writing advice.

>>3815955
Hmm.
Yerp.

>>3815923
Needs more alliteration and verbose lexicon.

Stuff like that always needs more descriptive language. There can never be too much of it. That said, i like it.

>>3816252
ye m8 it was fucking slam dunk, not literally but it was creative. hope that helps, but if your buddhist, youre supposed to savor every bite ?? excesses and karma is a hyperbole m8 and i dont understand how u go from drunk to DEAD BODY, was it a prsotitute lol?

>>3816214
>CARTER
>Oh.
>(He is sceptical.)
>Alright, we're out. See ya, Mahmoud.

This is really good. Does parenthesis mean it's whispered?

I heard a old man speak once,
He said he used to be able to see the sky
Behind the clouds
Before the bombs fell

Before California succomed to the faultline
And sank into the Pacific

He said he could hear the birds sing
Before the sky rained acid
And washed out their throats

He said they were almost as beautiful as the recordings

He said he saw the president die
Standing on the balcony
With the revolver to his temple
He saw the viscera splatter the lawn

They have flowers there now
Perfect rows of red chrysanthemums

They are almost a beautiful as the plastic ones

>>3816195
Okay i apologize for believing that this was homework. also i was only saying that i cant help your grammar problems.
Now the reasons i thought this was homework is why i didn't like it. The characters are unbelievable and flat, u spend no time convincing the audience that they are real or that they have any depth. The characters only holed the opinion they do because u want them to. The morale dilemma in the plane was less foreshadowing and more laziness. i didn't care if any of them died and i didn't care that the one lied to the other i don't even distinguish between them be cause they all feel like generic dolls. Also the dilemma wasn't very dramatic he left a half dead guy to die so what?
The moral debate is nothing new and u don't add anything to the conversation by repeating it
SRy but that's just what i think

>>3816284
i think u mixed me up with somebody else
>but if your buddhist, youre supposed to savor every bite ??
wait what? ya i lean towards buddhism but i don't really know what u mean bro

>>3816301
damn damn DAMN
that is dark beautiful and ill drink to it cheers

>>3816330
yea man you're dropping "karmic value"

>>3815993
where did u find the dotted i for naive m8? was it wikipedia or did you just like good and copy-paste or what m8

>>3815955
Any thoughts other than this guy's insightful opinion?
>>3816268

>>3816265
Thank you 4 your attention
I wish you success in all your future endeavors.
I will offer my opinion when asked and i hope people notice my name means neanderthal which might dissuade them from taking anything i say too seriously

>>3816344
Sry man at first i thought u were a troll then i thought this was stream of consciousness but then i was like is this what a computer thinks and the i just wanted to tell you the first paragraph made me laugh. The second the "plumber" showed up i was lost.
>I would like some validation that I'm doing the right thing, please! Some direction from up there. Corporate sponsorship.
BEST LINE love this i would have it on a long bumpersticker

>>3816162
i don't know i need to read more but its sounds interesting. I would like more descriptions of people or surroundings but its doesn't really "need" it

Elva was a short and skinny fourteen year old girl who clearly didn't put too much notice into how she looked, her chestnut brown hair looked like it was only slightly brushed and tied back into a pony tail, stray strands of hair still sticking out, her eyes had the telltale dark bags of someone who stayed up late while her skin had the equally tale telling paleness of someone who stayed indoors. Someone savvy with makeup could probably cover these up with some well placed eyeliner or foundation but Elva had neither the time or the care for it, she was too busy on other things like browsing the internet, playing video games and reading books.

I'm sure this next sentence is going to shock you, Elva did not have many social graces.

very first draft description of my protagonist, no proof reading.

>>3816341
i like you your funny

Every time I start to write, I panic. I used to be able to write and not worry about it, but now I think I'll just end up with page after page of unsalvageable garbage.

>>3816367
>mfw I knew a chick like this growing up
almost to the letter.

>>3816367
i love your protagonist
your description is vivid but in a story spread it out and make the stray strands of hear and bags under her eyes things other people point out to her since people do that shit all the time
but just so u know i like what u wrote and u should probably ignore what i wrote

H was a remarkably significant letter for the bearded man, who let the worries of the previous travel slip away as with his dimensional transcendence, as he set down his weary buttock atop the sand.. It appeared twice in his name, and for Englishmen, five times on his face, a few times about his body, and, although he hadn’t the faintest idea of this at the time, it would soon be that H would have been, quite literally, a prominent letter involved in the definition of the man’s hands. Perhaps, too, the man’s hands could be defined with an H at the time, even if only through some obscure word known only to those of the archaeological and historical persuasion, having to do with sand and the hands. Regardless, not yet. The sands had not yet been tainted with these words, and how could they have been, without even being old enough to have civilization set upon it, let alone have archaeologists and historians? Sand, though, seemed to be ubiquitous in this place, and therefore it can only be said that those particular sands hadn’t been touched by the omnipotent hand that is human nature. There were sands a few miles over that were far nicer than this pathetic lot of grimy, half-sand, with all the coarsity and none of the blood stains. Another jeweled sand might have regarded this type of sand with a Roman sense of superiority, which was frighteningly appropriate for the time period. The bearded man did not share such views; he supported equal sand rights.

>>3816389
So he had, a monumental discovery metaphorically slung over his shoulder, walked. Walked into the rift and came out in Earth, a dimensional bowel movement which made strong waves in the toilet that is that planet. The plan was not one particularly webbed with tangential motives and secrecy, something spun so tightly that it need be held together constantly; instead, all it required was an air of tension, a magic show, and sweet words, and he would be set in a growing seat of power in the land from which he had come. Sigmund Freud might, if he were a sociologist, have made a remark on how tense the nearby empire was at the time, and subsequently create a metaphor, which would later be vigorously studied in spite of the general population’s moral repugnance towards it, on how the empire simply had the wrong pants, which made the empire very tense, firstly because it was chafing up against the empire’s genitals (which represented public morale) and secondly, because the cool kids (Germans) which Rome felt ever-so superior towards, had rearranged his face (Roman resilience) when they saw the pants. Jesus agreed with this. The thought of sex glanced Jesus’ mind briefly, and he dismissed it in favor of a moral high-ground.

>>3816387
The H-Man, like most men, and for that matter, most women, was very holey. Holes on his nose, one in his rump, one relatively small one on the unsavory places of the male body, and some more on his head. In fact, there were such holes, as much as holes can be defined as holes, completely having conquered the surface area of the man’s skin. Take an E away from these pores littering the man’s skin and it wouldn’t make sense, without archaeologists and historians and their “por” dither, which was an interesting consideration, especially set against the fact that the word which defines their purest, fundamental concept could have its E taken away and no modern man would question the proclamation of it. This is because the H-Man was Jesus H. Christ, one who is holy, and one who is holey, and every H word in between and out. Not a single plight had interposed itself in Jesus’ planned path to Earth, and they would not be wont to even saunter in on Jesus’ metaphorical bus, laden with banners of “First Land or Bust”. Plights had a particularly debilitating aversion to Jesus, though some plights, Mortality, or Roman Agitation, were brave enough for a journey into Jesus, and when they hazarded such act, they found it to be quite an easy ride. Jesus, however, did not view these things as plights, and not purely due to a misguided sense of equality. No, they were supporters in his journey, the overtly ambitious project which had been undertaken by a young, humanist activist living only off of the faint memories and, a thing more typical, memoirs which remained in the subconscious of his family and any recordkeeper unfortunate to delve into monotony deep enough that he might be looking over some seemingly futureless dead merchant’s files.

>>3815955
>The Plumber sent me to smash the bottleneck. She was my wife
Burroughs

>Some direction from up there.
>Corporate sponsorship.
Delillo, misunderstood.

>Ah well.
Indulgent pretentiousness.
Sincere exclamation points. Bluntly uninspired "elusive" "ominous" "conspiratorial" (Pynchon?) naming scheme: The Bossman, The Plumber, The Technician, Corporate sponsorship.

You wear your influences too obviously, along with the 'ironic' melodrama. Very derivative.
And what's worse, you fucked up appropiating Delillo, asshole. You used White Noise's half-absurd namedropping of branded capitalist entities, that were assumingly an underlying subconscious presence in the world, and poorly alluded it to being a religious one, a replacement. What answer he receives from "up there". Yes, that's an element of white noise, "corporate sponsorship" replacing religion, but that's clearly not what Delillo was conveying with his namedropping.

Review me >>3815973

>>3816392
In that empire, across even more dunes and then some grass, the metaphorical chafing of the penis was speculated upon often, though not so racily as by the son of the Holy Virgin and Sigmund Freud of sociology. A select group viewed it as the consequence of the doings (quite literally, historians remarked. The current Roman Emperor had given many a piece of land for a night with a foreign queen. He was into nobility in more ways than one) of the ever-president emperor (that is, one who presides over things, not a full-blown democratic figure. Though, as the same historians remarked, an “ever president” would be fundamentally similar to an emperor). Another, literally select, group, which had been dubbed by its one (and only) president as Girls’ Society Against Judaism, rested all violence than ran, equivalent only to a cheetah, through and out the world upon the shoulders of the Jews (other historians remarked, wittily as they thought, that this made the Jews into the non-Jewish deitistic figure that rested the world upon his shoulders). It was neither and none of these reasons. No, in fact, it was an entirely different one. Though none is entirely sure of how to extrapolate the reason, historians regarded the best explanation for it as a metaphor involving the (very) late-blooming loins of the Roman Empire and the frustration little Romulus had having felt victory over a thousand armies, and yet not the armies of predeterministic biological growth.
The popular opinion outside of the historical community, however, looked to be that the cause was the sexually unholy undertones placed upon Rome by the historians.

>>3816393
As it goes with man in the cycle of history, Jesus had no interest in the cause: only what benefit he can leech from the matter, from the largest pool of benefit to the elementary molecules that compose the pool. The Roman pool was one of great water, indeed, and Jesus fully expected to drown in that. Nevertheless, he walked towards it, shedding his clothes and stripping down to fully immerse himself of the pool of power, as death was an obvious directive to his not-so-intricate plan. He would, perhaps, make himself into a martyr, let them seem, a very particular level of seeming which did not call for action but was very close to doing so, and then make his return to the dimension, rallying his followers and exponentially expanding whatever group he had assembled up to that point. He did, though, have quite a long ways to go; a daunting prospect, considering how much sand had already made its own good way to his loins.
On that note, he stood up, and looked around.
FOR the majority of the area, it was business as usual in the ground department, with nothing but his dad-to-be’s rough skin. At one point in his head turn, he laid his eyes on a town.
A town was not a particularly special town; in fact, it was so average and normal that one would be compelled to defy the laws of grammar to avoid calling it ‘the town’. It was as what classified a town as average, with walls, buildings, and windows. As far as they could get with windows, without glass. At the current point, they were merely holes.
My kind of place, thought Jesus.

plot is not what you think it is.

>>3816396
nigger its too fucking long

>>3816399
okay

>>3816214
i love mahmoud
but not much else there to really get into

>>3816406
i will read it give me a min

>>3816387
>he set down his weary buttock atop the sand.
nice use of the buttock's

at first i was confused then i read
>equal sand rights
and i laughed out loud and no longer care what it all means

>>3816367
Here's more, more first draft with no proof reading or "Is this even any good" checking.

Elva sat quietly in the school lobby, she told herself it will be just like the last school, that she'd just silently breeze through it and never stick out, that it was better for her that way. Despite what she told herself, she noticed that she was quite tense, trembling even.
"Stop that Elva" she thought to herself "Nothing to be worried about, it's just school you've been doing it for 9 years already."
She decided to try and distract herself and look around the room, there were various awards for cross school sporting events, a plauqe with previous Head Boys and Head Girls, she found the name of the 1989 head boy amusing "Alfred Snook". She wondered if they called him Alfred, it wasn't a very good name for a kid, maybe they called him Al, or Fred, maybe they had a different nickname for him like "Dodger" or-
"Miss Lane?"
Elva jumped, she quickly looked behind herself to see a rather elderly old woman in a dress with bright pink stripes staring at her, the woman smiled at her and started speaking like she was talking to a small child. "Elva, that's your name right dear? I'm Miss Gertrude, I'm here to take you to your homeroom."
Elvas first thought was that her dress was tacky.

>>3816392
i loved this paragraph
i loved all of it change none of it

>>3816443
i still love Elva and it don't think u need the quotes when she is talking to herself unless you meant she said it out loud

>>3816393
>the sexually unholy undertones placed upon Rome by the historians.
i was unsure about this then i read this line and i laughed again u are good sir

As Mary entered the parking lot, the sun was just beginning to shine
through the school, the sky was a calm yet somehow dazzling blue, the
grounds and students within seemed to be illuminated with the vigor of
a new year. Mary herself was especially spotlighted by the morning sun
behind her and the straight walk to the large school gates made
her feel like one of those fashion models she had painstakingly
observed and noted as though the world were her catwalk, as though her
disciples were her loving supporters. These young adults wandering
around the campus early that morning definitely did feel like her
devoted fans. As she walked towards the main staircase, Mary noticed
groups of young men pausing for a moment to secretly watch her
movements and upon eye contact would break this hiatus only to start
whispering to his nearest friends in that rushed, hushed voice
attributed to teenage gossip. By the time Mary had reached the second
floor where her classroom was located, a surprisingly large ensemble of
students had gathered to witness and gaze at the young new teacher.
Upon reaching her classroom, she found all of her students had already
gathered in their respective seats, the only empty chairs were hidden
in the back of the room. From her desk, she was able to gaze out the
half-window on the top of the door at the dozens of boys trying to
stick their head in, desperate to see this young, single, teacher. A
few of the brave ones actually winked at her when she faced their
penetrating gaze. This continued long after first bell rang, and it
took a stubborn guidance counselor patrolling the halls to finally
dispel the crowd.
Of course, all of this was naive, idle fantasy and never really
happened. Okay, there was a Mary and it was her first day as a teacher
at Southwest High, but as any student of Southwest High or really any
public high school should know, almost every detail provided above is
incredulous and those that aren't are simply impossible.

>>3816479
When Mary actually arrived to Southwest High, it was late late into
Daylight Savings Time and, as such, it was still depressingly dark--a
mood that was reflected by the face of nearly every high school student
forced to wake up early for the first time in ten weeks. Any light
that was shining on Mary was due to the myriad car headlights from the
dozens of grumpy mothers desperate to deposit their kid for the next
seven hours as she walked the winding sidewalk path to the school
gates. Being high schoolers at seven o'clock on a Monday morning, none
of them gave a second thought to the new teacher--assuming that any of
them realized that she was new at all. No boy looked her way twice and
the only conversations she overhead concerned how stoned they had
gotten over vacation. One such student had progressed pretty far in
his vivid retelling of his trip to Hawaii when Mary gave a stubborn
fake cough that sent them scurrying away from her classroom. Finally,
as is always the case on the first day of school at Southwest High,
only a dozen or so of the state-mandated twenty-five students were in
the classroom by second bell. This was followed by the routine
intercom announcement stating that tardies were to be excused today
due to the traffic outside and an encouragement for teachers to be
understanding.

I know I've got a lot to improve here.

I'm working on a comic.

First hackers hacked public electronic display and display murderous message. For example "a bomb is installed in the mall and it's going to explode in 1 hour. run away quickly if you value your life.".
Police station is in chaos, because worried citizens are flooding them with phone calls to report about the incident. Every officer is on the phone trying to calm down the citizens.
An intelligent hacker use his talent for good, he traced all the people who hacked into public electronic display and send their address and identity to police. He also fix the vulnerability of public electronic display.
Thanks to the hacker, police are happy now that all the culprits are captured.
But there is one exception: a murder message which cannot be traced, and it gives an exact time of a crime that is about to happen. "3 Jun 2013 10:00 near the city park, a person is going to get killed."
No location information is available, so hundred of polices are ordered to monitor the area 5km around city park.
At the exact time, a bullet killed a man in the subway near city park.
The subway was closed and everyone at the subway are thoroughly questioned, but none of them are suspicious. CCTV footages show nothing suspicious.
Who is the killer, and how do he kill the man? How did this murder happen?

>>3816396
Whats plot?

“I knew your father, he was a good man, you have my sympathy,” Rovel expelled behind clenched teeth.

“I’ll have to take your word on that, his time was spent on better things than me. I never really knew the man, only of him through the admiration of strangers.”

“A man never really knows his own father, he knows of a hero. Or a bastard, but only short little episodes of the true nature of the man himself. It is the tragedy of being so modern that a child gets the chance to come face to face with the broken mirror that is their father, it was better when it was not so. I think that the distance is necessary; your child must have something to aspire to. My Eve knows only the foyer of the palace, only the treasures and trophies I choose to display. You would do well to remember that. Now if you will excuse me I have others to speak with,” with that, Rovel walked away.

I have mine in another thread

>>3816418

but it can be seen here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9350864/1/The-Greatest-Story-Ever-Told

Be Gentle.

>>3816480
i didn't like the story till "of course, all of this naive idle fantasy"
then i loved it all its nice work and i would like to read more

>>3816481
the hacker is too close to magic for me but if u can sell it more power to you

OCD
You've done the same things over and over, time and time again.
You think you're developing some OCD because you have learned nothing from results nor mistakes.
"It gets better," they chant, a mantra burning into your skin and branding itself along the sharp lines of your jaw.
Love. That is the reoccurring sense of pain; it is the heart wrenching disorder of humanity.
You fall in love on Tuesday and forget on Sunday.
You think you're developing some OCD.

>>3816508
i like the topic but i just don't think the last paragraphs dialogue is very believable but the topic is pretty dead on. i like it but make it more of a conversation.

>>3816559
sry i don't get it. its supposed to be a poem right?

>>3816568
Yes.

>>3816573
is it about love and we keep chasing it only to get hurt? also repeating the same action and expecting a different result is insanity OCD repeat the same action because they expect the same result
an example is once u opened the door with your left hand and then it rained so now you only open doors with your right hand

>>3816559
honestly i like the first 4 lines up to "disorder of humanity"
>You fall in love on Tuesday and forget on Sunday.
i don't really see y u forget i think u mean fall out of love

Okay! So, I've posted this before in threads like this, but only one person read just part of it. If anyone wants to give it a go, please do. Feedback would be fun.

>http://pastebin.com/xpTv0T1V
It's almost 6,000 words.

Here is a little context for its creation—someone I knew provided me ten elements to include in a work of fiction as a sort of challenge. I can't remember them all, but I bet I could pick them out if I reread the... I digress—hats with birdcages, a convention, animal postal service, and so on.

I have another piece under the same premise, but with a different set of ten elements. It's unfinished, but I'll post it if anyone actually finishes this one. Cheers!

>>3816665
sry too tired i am going to sleep good luck with that

>>3815955

Took two read-throughs, but I liked it

>>3816293
Thanks! I actually gave up on this a while ago, I might come back to it later. Parentheses are stage or voice directions to the actors.
>>3816407
Thanks, Mahmoud was really fun to write.

Heres a part of the intro scene.

http://pastebin.com/7uLe9MYS

Have mercy on me. This is my first time posting anything on /lit/. It's probably my best piece so far, but I fucking hate the last four lines. Too sing-songy in my opinion.

A Rebours

That weed buried deep within my abdomen,
bearing twin fruits that flower
in dark recesses of meat and matter,
holds no sway over the way I choose my gardener.
For you tend to me not as an orchard tree,
but as an unfurling leaf in a wreath of cannabis,
knowing that only sowing in the absence of males
will muster in me sticky drops of dew
serving only to intoxicate further
as I smolder within the pipe upon your lips.

Useless, they call us:
illegal, illicit indulgence,
banishing us to backseats and backalleys
or else dismissing us as youthful dalliance,
subversive, yet short-lived.
After all, what good are we?
Neither fecund nor flowering,
only stalky and towering,
vanishing into vapors and haze
while beyond sight or mind we blaze.

How far have we fallen from grace
When once we were permitted a place
among the sacred, not secret,
guarding the gates between states of being unaccessed,
drawing out dreams from streams of vapor unweaving
and cleaving twin souls together in one sheath?
We were diplomats of duality
promising peace and revising reality,
revealing roads of rainbow radiance
beyond boundaries of black and white brick walls
that they have built up and refuse to let fall.

Now we must swallow our fright
and stand in the bright
of daylight reemerging
and brace ourselves for abuses and excuses
as they repaint us sordid shades we never were.
We must return like the repressed
resurfacing against superego from the safety of subconscious
to resist reactionary riots of self-righteous outrage.
And in the midst of all the violence and thrall,
As they rip at your root, I won't let you fall,
for you are the only salve with which to treat my pain,
and we have been grafted against the same grain

>>3816685
i just cant believe this chick Natalie has 1.5k prada shoes just make her pissed don't mention the price of the shoes

>>3816301
Wow this is amazing. Says so much without saying too much. I wish I could give a more constructive comment than that, but I was just blown away.

>>3816691
its okay i like it but i feel a bit brow beaten

>>3816719
How so?

>>3816705
Haha, every character in this play is based on someone at my university, so there is a girl with 1.5k prada shoes out there somewhere

Also it's pretty nice of you to actually read all these excerpts, not just mine but everyone elses too

>>3816727
i just meant that it felt to me like when i hear a speech from the other side of the aisle talking about the evils of weed
if u want i will pull out quotes but i just mean to say its longer then it needs to be

Spiralling downward
Ready to collapse at any moment
I needed guidance, direction
I was always warm and kind, still am
Inside, but outside
Just a computer running through its lines of code,
Purely Boolean
What did you expect to happen when you broke a child
I was lost
Alone, abandoned by everyone
I needed guidance, direction
One hand was judged,the other..
Cut off
Two years, two years
Alone in my mind
I was still in my adolescence
No fatherly presence
Nor motherly love
When I needed them most
They judged me
When I needed them most
They cut me off
Whispers, murmurs
They thought I couldn't hear
I was just a child, still am

thoughts?

>>3816743
Sure, that would be great if you don't mind.

>>3816691
Rebours, i don't know what this means
>buried deep within my abdomen
lungs?
>guarding the gates between states of being unaccessed
dont get it
>cleaving twin souls together in one sheath?
dont get it
>resurfacing against superego from the safety of subconscious
to resist reactionary riots of self-righteous outrage.
And in the midst of all the violence and thrall,
i understand poetic license but there is no violence while there is self righteous outrage but u must admit self righteousness is shared by everyone not just the right wing. The superego and subconscious metaphor is creative but not really relevant

>>3816788

>says he's going to bed
>skips my work
>comments on the work of another
>spits in my face
>eats my last cookie
>smashes my favorite vase
lumpenprole.

He would sit, hanging his legs off the side of the ship, with hundreds of meters of sky below his feet. He would stare at the miles and miles of skies above that he, nor anyone else, could never reach. The starfield would bring him peace even in his lowest stupor, with Orion opening the floodgates for his oldest memories, and Ursa Major returning his calm demeanor that vanished with the loss of his sister, Eva.

While Penn stared at the skies, Bell would watch him. Ever since he boarded the ship, she wanted to know more about him. This man was somewhat an enigma to everyone except himself. During the day, he'd smile and be happy, laughing at everything, and making humor at the expense himself primarily. During the day, nothing seemed to phase him, but at night it was a different story.

He'd stay up reading, writing, drawing, painting, making songs or poems, or trying to play something on the piano in the foyer. He did these things because he felt like he had an obligation to the world to create something, anything. Everything he tried, he was never satisfied with, because he was trying to make up for something he felt like he had caused. Penn was always trying to fill the hole left behind when his sister passed.

Bell sometimes stayed up with him, without him knowing it. She'd listen to his songs he wrote, or the tapping of the pencil on paper, wondering what he was drawing. To her, he was an excellent poet, artist, and musician; to him he wasn't good enough. Every now and then, he'd hear him stop writing or drawing, or stop singing, and he'd cry. He'd cry almost silently, mumbling about being alone, and being a screw up. Saying things like "they were right about me."

(damn character count)

>>3816760
>Purely Boolean
my fav line
>One hand was judged,the other..Cut off
i feel like i read this somewhere today, not a comment just sleepy
i thought this was emotional and it does represent i think what a adolescent or young adult go through seeking guidance or direction from their elders and finding that their own opinion and concerns are of no concerns to those they looked to for advice
>Inside, but outside
i don't get it

>>3816811
lol i was thinking this exact thing this entire time i was going to sleep but i cant tear my eyes from 4chan i will read your thing now i promise i might not finish but just know 6k words is already impressive

>>3816816
>One hand was judged,the other..Cut off
one side of the family only judged while the other side cut me off
>Inside, but outside
on the inside i was innocent while on the outside more calculated

>>3816788
Sorry. The whole thing was meant to be a double entendre on marijuana use and homosexuality (particularly lesbianism).

>buried deep within my abdomen
Ovaries
>guarding the gates between states of being unaccessed
That whole stanza was a reference to the "third gender" type people who held a place of honor in Native American societies. Also, the use of drugs by shamans as a means of inducing a spiritual experience. Sexual minorities and drugs were both associated with spirituality rather than godless hedonism.
>Cleaving twin souls together in one sheath
In other words, "two-spirits" (what third-genderd Native Americans are often called)
>resurfacing against superego from the safety of subconscious
I was kind of trying to go for a "return of the repressed" type thing here.

Is there anyway for me to make this all a bit clearer and more comprehensible?

August's uncomfortable grasp had almost broken us, as we searched stacks upon stacks of books. There must have been thousands of them, all for fifty cents each, three for a dollar, and a dollar for the larger, hardcover ones. She held up a tattered copy of Dubliners, and I remembered giving her a similar one months before. She said she had enjoyed it, and gave it back looking as if it had been read a million times. I reached into a box and pulled out two smaller tomes. One was lighter green - Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist", and it was colored in, as a child would color Superman or Spiderman or Wonder Woman (Wonderwoman?). The pages were highlighted and dog-eared, and the book as a whole was tattered. I decided to buy it - if I didn't, it would end up in the same box in the same library at the same time in a few months for the winter sale, and nobody would buy it then, either.
1/2

>>3816812
Nighttime was his time to let it all out. All the thoughts that he could never share with the crewmates. Sometimes, he'd make an attempt by saying something deep, but it would always fly over everyone's head, except for Bell's. She was the only person he could ever really have a good conversation with, thought he wouldn't dare tell her about why he was depressed, or why he'd sometimes go to her cabin to check on her.

Earlier that night Bell had woken up to Penn being in her doorway, though she pretended to still be in slumber. After he left she decided that she should've asked him why he was there, and lifted herself out of bed to search for him.

Well, here he was, hanging his legs off the side. Waiting, hoping someone would come and help him not be so alone in his thoughts, because even the stars had lost their calming charm. At the same time, he was almost dreading the day somebody would ask him what's wrong.

Here she was, watching him again. She was tired of hearing him cry at night, and tired of only seeing the walls Penn had put up. She was going to peel back the shroud of happiness, to solve the enigma, and get to know the real Penn.

"Penn," she said in an almost inaudible voice.

>>3816838
The second book I discovered was Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita". Both she and I had meant to read it months ago, but never found a copy. I looked over to her, and found her reading the first few pages of another copy. Two different printings, two different covers and introductions and forewords and afterwords but all the same words in between. The thing kept constant between the volumes was Nabokov's prose, of which we both only knew the first page of an apparently pedophilic novel. To touch the torn typesets of too many years removed a literary masterpiece was stunning. Many people had read it, and interpreted it, as they wanted or as their peers wanted, and it was all because one Russian man wrote some words on a page and put it together to form...this. I tap her on the shoulder and hold up my copy. She smiles. We buy the two of them (and the historically damaged Portrait) for one dollar in cash, and leave for the sanctity of an air-conditioned apartment. We stop for ice cream on the way home, and talk of plans of concerts and reading and lovemaking and we eat chocolate winters in a sugar cone and think about the summer ahead of us, the summer we read Nabokov.

>>3816825
>Is there anyway for me to make this all a bit clearer and more comprehensible?
well i would separate the issues but i get why u wouldn't. I like the fact that femininity is a major theme in the plant i think if the title was more clearly something to do with femininity it would be easier to get.
>Ovaries
LOL i was like racking my brain what does an abdomen have to do with weed. is it like a narrative from mother earth? but now i get it alot of stuff i was like ok dont get it but sounds good now i am like OH its a SHE lol

>>3816852
I really like it the people felt real i could relate to the relationship and the book shopping was very well described and forced me into nostalgia.
But what the fuck is chocolate winters? ice cream? are u some kind of Canadian or god forbid a euro?

>>3816854
> Is it like a narrative from mother earh?
Naw, it's a poem I wrote for my girlfriend when she was coming out to her parents. She used grow pot in her bedroom while she was in high school. She told me that female cannabis plants were the best for smoking because, when separated from male plants, they produce a lot of dew in which THC is abundant. That's where I got the "sowing in the absence of males" line from.

>>3816665
I haven't read all of it but i found it amusing i know a bit about D&D so a bunch of the words like teifling and such didn't throw me off like it might for others i am really tired and saved the story to read later but i wont be finishing tonight i am sure. There was a lot of humor and that made everything feel more real it was good and i definitely expect to read something u publish in the future

>>3816911
Male and female plants...? Oh, I'm thinking and remembering plants tend to have both pistil and stamen. AmIwrong?

>>3816911
i am no expert but male plants produce no actual THC. Female plants produce more thc when separated from males because there is no pollination and thus no seeds its also so the energy and nutrients that would be spent on procreation are turned to flowering. its 1 reason why really good bud has no seeds and shit weed has plenty(beyond the genetics of different strains)

>>3816926
Fact.

>>3816926
read>>3816824

>>3816918
Eh, I'm not sure. My knowledge of botany is rather limited. Hers isn't though. Her family lives on a farm, so she does a lot of gardening. She told me that there's a way to tell if a cannabis plant is male or female and that when she first got her plant, she was pissed because she thought it was a hermaphrodite. Then she explained to why female plants are so valuable. Afterwards, I saw a documentary called "The Botany of Desire" which pretty much confirmed what she had told me.

>>3816812
>could never reach
i just dont know what your saying here
>enigma to everyone except himself
that's just unnecessary remember less is more
>During the day
just remove the second time u use it

>>3816914
How am I supposed to get feedback from you if you don't finish it tonight? I don't frequent the boards that often.

I don't think I'm good enough to be published. I just write for fun. I'm a math major...

>>3816926
>so the energy and nutrients that would be spent on procreation are turned to flowering
Aw shit. Maybe I should take out the line about flowering and talk about seeds instead to make it more accurate.

>>3816840
i liked it i wanted more dialogue but its good to see it was building to this conversation

>>3816950
flowering might not be the right word its just the word i used to explaining the Blooming Bud process

>>3816945
okay i promise to finish it tonight and write a comment hear it might take me some time but stay tuned

Walking down the street, listening to my ipod
my dog is on my leash, walking beside me
this moment feels so great, I wish it would last forever

the song on my ipod is my favourite band
a band that plays rock and has great, powerful singing
my dog is white, with black spots, so happy to be on the walk

people pass me walking by, smiling and happy too
this may just be the best walk of my life
if I wasn’t about to die of brain cancer the next day

>>3816964
ok i am a dick but if u
>about to die of brain cancer the next day
then this would probably be the best walk of your life
are you the same writer
>>3816760
>>3816691
>>3816559

>>3816665
No one ever gets through it. Sad face. I'll give it another half hour or so to see if someone musters the perseverance.

>>3817007
hey manmi am the one doing the reading so stop complaining i got 90 lines left i will speed through it for you and
"If there was a god of apathy I don't think they would even take time to give him due."
Is better then anything i have read in any other fantasy story

>>3817007
OKay so i still liked it
i would read the adventures of edric, not so much anyone else but maybe the dragonborn
The elves were unique i liked them and the gore of the magic was really neat
Your descriptions were good i found the dancing models and tendrils of black fire very good visuals
I think the story ended a little premature but it was a good place to pause if you have a second chapter and are intending to explain why the black fire stopped
All the dialogue was perfect it was funny believable and none of it was generic or stereotypical

>>3817030
Am I still on 4chan? I must not be. No one says things like this here, especially not about another person's work.

Yet, thank you. I do enjoy writing—maybe I'll do some more and post it here over the summer.

Also, thank you for actually finishing it.

I'm glad you didn't answer my call
glad because I was gonna say it all
all the lonely fucked up nights
I can't really feel a thing
other than my stomach turning
and the feeling of my brain burning
a hundred things that I could do
but i would rather be with you

daytime seems maddening
a role assumed, bombastic and absurd
but the nights are worse
full of my swearing and my curse
full of a lot of things
that could be called a lot
full of my fear of the moment
that lonely moment in the dark

where i would rather be with you
because otherwise I don't really know what to do

>>3817115

>that could be called a lot
>I don't really know what to do

These two phrases don't have the same power as every other line. Consider revising them.

I see a beta pining after a girl who dumped him. I can feel the frustration, but the speaker comes off kind of pathetic.

Like a self-damned Sisyphus
Pushing boulders up his hill
My love for you drags onwards
Yet I'll never have my fill

Kindred of the Mariner
Bound forever to the seas
drifting about lifelessly
never to embrace your breeze

I strove towards the heavens
my quest your passionate fire
fettered now to this cold earth
never to venture higher

And yet I carry onwards
In this never-ending pain
Holding on to fragile hope
that my love will never wane

http://pastebin.com/sKweDXkv

I don't want a critique on how I write, the style or the content. I want a critique on the idea that this puts forwards, if you could do that. Thanks /lit/

>>3817263

Dislike your beginning things with 'like' and 'and', and 'embrace' of the breeze. But it's breddy gud.

>>3815985
And it reads like it, too.

>>3817340
how about 'grasping at an empty breeze?'

I'm very unhappy with this one, but think it has some nice bits, so I might as well throw it here rather than let it rot in a folder somewhere. It's about a girl.

A wall of differently-colored
particles (--> .
and the whole damn spectrum)
extending out and screaming
(maybe like pink noise) and
moving like a freight-train
pulsing (pulsating) through
mostly

my head but all of me.

And I'm not scared of you.

(When your viciousness comes
of sincerity--feelings: spontaneous
acts of dorky retribution--I love you.)

And I want to call you a razor--
some invocation of sharpness; a
hard angle (angels are less afraid)--

but that's candy coating (clothing:
something worn),

and you're fragments.

And maybe birds <O> or
a light (and I do feel a light and
giddiness--glee--often and a
certain softness) is there but

honestly

ephemeral extensions of equity
is all I've got and

words (to be clear).

And to be clear

that's much more than's respectable (
not crass, but honesty always
is) and there's just too much:

the pixelated field in the void.

Flash Fiction. Would appreciate any feedback!

http://pastebin.com/c61GbUcd

>>3816903
Nah I don't know where I was going with that. I think I meant to expand it to "Chocolate cold as winter" but for some reason didn't. Thanks for that, though!

>>3817373

Sorry for late reply but yeah sure that's better

I mean no doubt the whole thing could be improved in other ways but after fixing those points I mentioned, it would seem decent enough to me.

http://pastebin.com/Wa115caf

first draft of first chapter of my novel. Ignore what's in parentheses

>>3816321
I knew people would miss the point, but I never imagined someone would miss it as spectacularly as you have.
I'll give you a hint: it isn't about morality.

>>3817489

To be blunt. It's bad. Really bad. Its unbelievable, the characters thoughts and feelings are far fetched. It just sounds like its coming from some 12 year old beta. sorry to sound cruel.

>Then he began to feel like it was his fault – a revelation of his shallow character, or for simply being too fat. He was miserable and became a nihilist.

really. Just like that he became a nihilist?

your trying to say to much in such a small amount of words. less is sometimes more.

>>3815907
The first chapter of this arc within a novel. A novella in its own right when finished.
http://atjupiter.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/jeffrey/

Bump

Someone please say they got what I was going for with this:
http://pastebin.com/a53YU197
It's based loosely on the story of Philitas of Cos. I wrote it for an online competition and it's doing pretty badly, but the people who have critiqued so far have kinda... missed the point? Or something. So I want to see what people on here make of it.
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=rXb0aJkW
>pls respond

>>3819308
oops pasted the link twice

>>3817301
Well, I don't know French, so it was confusing. But it seemed liked some self-important guy doesn't like tourists. It wasn't very interesting.

>>3818582
I like it. I enjoy a good chunk of wordy writing.

>>3815954

Well for a school project, that's fine.

But if that is a poem, what's the style?

I'm all for uniqueness, but unless you're freaking Robert Frost (who actually liked to use sonnet form for his poems) this is really just a bunch of ramblings.

Write poems in a some sort of style first, like Shakespearean or Petrarchan styles . Then, when you get good at it, you can try to experiment with other forms.

>>3818418

That's pretty short for a chapter, in my opinion.

The narrator's pontificating gets old fast. Apocalyptic stories don't really grab me.

I understand you were trying to draw attention to how calm the protagonist was amid a city in chaos, but it is his calmness which makes the piece feel like it drags on and on with nothing happening.

Also, you have a molehill of grammatical errors.

>>3819308

A person would die going that long without food.

It was an interesting read until I came upon the word retarded. It ruined everything. The mood you were crafting—shattered. And it could really do without the swearing. It debases the piece.

If this Philitas is trying to commit suicide, it is an awfully long, drawn-out, painful one. It almost seems like he is trying to draw sympathy onto himself. That's what suicide is, isn't it—a cry for attention?

>>3818418

you feed me nothing in this first chapter. Why should I continue reading if there's nothing to really suck me in?

World's fucked. Alright, why is it fucked?
>don't want to say, alright then

What makes the protagonist not fucked?
>didn't say either

What makes this an interesting story then?
>Don't know.

You have to give me bait so I'd bite. I won't bite an empty hook.

>>3816665

Would anyone else like to read my piece? I'd love more feedback.

The first time I saw the thing, was on the bus. My experience was not special, because there were about 50 other people on the bus with me. We all at first heard a loud sound, a deafening "boom", and I remember the reverberation went on for ages. The bus lurched backwards as the driver hit the brakes and people on the side closest to the sound (I was on the other side) began screaming loudly. I remember feeling a horrible sick sensation in my stomach. I was aware that it was adrenaline, and that I may have to use it, which was something I had never done before. The people on the far side of the bus started running out as fast as they could and our side naturally followed.
We were in a neighborhood close to a city. Our point of view was slightly raised so we could see all the detail of the city clearly. Everyone sort of became quiet as we saw what made the sound, with a scream here and there, or crying. It was a huge piece of metal, floating in the air. My mind immediately though: "alien spaceship". It was surreal, like a dream. The hunk of metal was already very close to the city. it seemed to still be descending slowly...

"Come on, come on."
"What's the rush?"
"There's been something big, something huge!"
"What, where?"
"Just come on, we're going to miss it! Hurry hurry!"
Not leaving me to my own device, she took my hand, pulling me through a rather large crowd of overcoats and people who's faces I couldn't quite see. I didn't get her. She did this every now and then, pull me here and there, without much regard for others around. This would often result in a few apologies on my part, in her stead.
"How much farther is it?"
"Just a bit, just a bit more, we're almost there."
But when we arrived her enthusiasm sank to the ground. Quiet whispers from the shoulders beside us, and a shrieking lady in the arms of an officer in front. I look down at her and notice her eyes. This is too much for her. I cover her eyes with my hands, and only a short time later, they are wet with warm tears. I look around. Some people's faces have too sank to the brick under their feet. Some people masking their own tears. Others giving a tip of hat and being on their way. A wind picks up, and in front of me blows a poster. "Parade! Parade! Parade! Tonight at 7:00PM on 87th Street! Don't be late!" I check my watch. It's 6:59.

>>3815993
that fidanza is a real bastard

>>3820448
Hey thanks! I recieved conflicting advise, saying it was too wordy, but here is an intellectual able to understand high school level words.

I was, of course, never able to discern between what was morally justifiable and what was not due to my own inherent mental disabilities... However when dealing with the death of someone that I am sure I should have loved if I was normal, I am still begrudged a vague sense of perpetuated longing. I would associate this feeling to the same
one that I feel at the introduction of Brahms' third symphony.
So, when I sat there in the cathedral cues mimicking the faces of those around me I could not help but to also feel a damaged vanity; although I could feel naught else.
After picking up paperwork, I decided to head to a café and attempt to make sense of emotions and whether or not their absence in my psyche was a gift or a mutation.
"How do you take your coffee, sir?"
"Black is fine. I'm sweet enough already."
This was met by an exasperated smile, undoubtedly the worker had had enough of pseudo-intellectual middle aged men making sarcastic remarks, and under his scrutiny I picked the mug up off of the bar and returned to my own table.
Now, emotions played no part in my life, one I would call relatively successful. If I was without emotion was I without instinct as well? Well of course not, if I was in danger I ducked and covered my head like any other human being. Conjuring up reasons to manifest a sense of self pity that I am unable to achieve anyway seemed thoroughly exhausting. But then, a revelation, it seized and shook me and said unto me: You are free, free of the trivial expectations and the pathos of a flawed existence. You are uninhibited by foolish morality. Those who have been cold and distant and ruthless an d unwavering in their ambition have excelled in their desires. You alone possess this enviable existence.
And so, the orange bottle made its way into the waste bin as quickly as the empty coffee cup.


****
Hopefully this isn't horrible. I've just started trying to write, after reading As I Lay Dying I was just terrifically inspired

Pic related, I'm planning to extend it to a short graphic novel / comic

>>3821888
Why did you have to kill the puppy?

It was the third of June, yet another day in the dull and unremarkable beginning of summer. Mild weather had pervaded the tabletop plains of northeast Arkansas; normally accustomed to near triple-digit temperatures and a starkly empty—yet beautiful—sky, the residents of the friendly region had been surprised by cotton balls, gentle rains, and sub-eighty degree days. This day was no different. A calm morning, some could even say it was chilly, greeted the plants and animals. The soft and loving touch of a light breeze, no more than a breath on a cheek, stirred life back into existence, ending the short reprieve granted by the disappearance of the blazing chariot of Helios. The citizens of this small and deeply devout world would have said that it was the breath of God that had revived life, that it was by His kindness that the air was not a sweltering soup of mosquitoes and mirages. Indeed, the third of June was the kind of day that made even the most doubtful of skeptics—of which there were few—for a brief moment believe in the existence of some higher power, one that appreciated beauty.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure where exactly I want to go from there. However, I'm certain that I want to start with this. I'm mainly wondering what I should do in regards to the Helios part. A friend of mine and I both feel as if using "Helios" instead of just plain "sun" makes it seem as if I'm trying too hard. Thoughts?

>>3821888
That was sad as shit. But I liked it

>>3821888
That's some stoic acceptance right there.

>>3821888
I'm sorry, who's the guy with the crown?

Welcome back my old friends,
Depression and helplessness are seated right across from me,
Your visit has been over do for a while now,
Look right past me and cast me aside,
Entertain yourselves I know you'll be staying a while,
Make yourself at home after all it practically yours,
Everything was left right where you like it,
Tug at the same strings bring back the same memories,
Lets spit the bull once again my friends we're just going through the motions anyway,
Some day the tide will come back down to it's inevitable low,
But for now it's just higher then I can stand,
It's right over my head and just out of my reach,
Time went too fast to even notice,
It ends today our faithful steed who hooves have dragged on hospice for a while now,
Rest now sweet friend you really earned it,
There is no pain after this I promise,
It will all be over soon the nightmares the fighting the everyday struggle,
You will be free from this machine,
Free to let go of your burdens,
I'll carry it for you really I don't mind,
And after you get to the other side if you don't mind,
Come back and visit my old friend,
Take your seat right across from me,
Your visit has been over due for a while now.

>>3821888
That's pretty dark. I like it though, keep working on it. I'd love to see a full graphic novel.

>>3822532
?

>>3822581
The dad, he's wearing a paper hat that comes in a christmas cracker

>>3822561
>>3822575
>>3822639
Thanks guys. I know it pretty dark but that's where I wanted it to go, and the medium makes it really interesting to explore.

>>3823208
I feel sorry for the puppy and the little boy.
Please don't kill the puppy ;_;

You were wearing green
I remember that very
clearly;
you were wearing a
green skirt
and a white shirt
but I didn't really
pay attention to that -
I was looking at
your eyes
your big, bright, brown eyes
and your dimples
whenever you smiled,
your whole face lit up
it was like staring at the sun
on a rainy day
while that wet smell
is still
in the air
and the clouds
have just parted

I think my heart
might have broken
right then
when I realized
that I would
never
ever
go on a long walk
with you
along the beach
or sit up all night
while we gazed at each other
and talked until
I knew you
and you knew me
or wake up next to you
and put my arm around you
just to feel you hug me
a little tighter
in your sleep

the feeling didn't last, though
because in about ten minutes
I found out that
jesus christ you are such a cunt
get bent

I noticed messy bedsheets bunched up in the corner of the room, atop the shambled bed sat Jeremy.
"Hey, man" I remember hearing him say.
He smelled like pot and dried semen. He talked about get-rich-quick schemes and legal loopholes. I didn't talk very much, but I listened a lot.
"What you registered for?" he asked.
"Writing 1, Psych, Precalc--"
"Woah ho--psych with ?" he interrupted.
"Gordon."
"Nice, bro, same. Shit's gonna be cool. The guy recycles tests; buddy of mine got them for me. You doing something tonight?"
I don't really remember the classes I took my first semester. All that mattered was Psych.
The social science building was several yards away from my dorm, laying across a large quad with some trees and a statue of the old founder. It was pretty. I remember Jeremy walking with me on the first day to class. He kept talking about a party I should go to, but I wasn't listening.
When we entered the building, I remember seeing this group of girls, huddled in a circle, chatting. I caught the last part of it. Something about a missing girl they knew. Jeremy elbowed me from the side.
"Heard about it from an upper, same guy that scores me my coke. Last year some girl disappeared around here." he said.
"Oh?" I remember saying, not particularly interested.
"Yeah, Karen...somefuckingthing, I don't remember. But they tried to find her - no dice. All of her stuff was gone too." he finished.
We continued walking ahead until we reached the classroom. Jeremy entered first, and I followed. It was a gray windowless room with desks unevenly scattered about. The board was dry-erase, and there was a wooden podium in the corner across from the door. Jeremy shook hands with a few grimy-looking guys and indicated with his hand to follow him to the back.