/lit/ - Literature

>>6809019
I only visit these threads to remind me that I'm not as bad as I think at writing, through reading stuff like yours. Your little excerpt will keep my ego afloat for a week at least, thanks faggot.

>>6809074
>I only visit these threads to remind me that I'm not as bad as I think at writing, through reading stuff like yours.
I like the first person narration, and it's edgy but not too edgy. The comma is a little awkward; it would work in conversation I guess but it just reads weird.

>Your little excerpt will keep my ego afloat for a week at least, thanks faggot.
I'm such a huge fan of narcissistic asshole narrators, and the inflammatory 'faggot' just adds so much to the depth of this character.

I'd say 8/10, but I'd like to hear a lot more about this guy. Thanks anon, but please rate before you post.

>>6809019
Highschool level smut. Throw in the name Harry Potter, Ron, and Hermonie and I wouldn't be surprised to find it on fanfiction.net

>>6809104
Smut: Highly developed stories with love lines and other things that appeal to women that also include alot of sexually explicit scenes.

My sex scene:
>The sex is alright

My context:
>zero romance, essentially drugging and raping a girl who was in love with someone else

I do genuinely wish I could say I took something away from your critique.

There are times when I like the anonymity of 4chan, but other times people abuse it w/o repercussions other than harming those who are trying to legitimately contribute to the site. It's these that we deem as 'cancer', and rightly so. I call on you, brethren, to consistently trip and see how these kind of posts are handled when people start seeing the same people posting all this worthless hate everywhere, and other trips rise to be respected for their consistent, valuable input.

Thanks, guy, learned a lot about things today.
>>6809074

>>6809205
lol what a fag
yr writn sux bud

enjoy my drunk critique:
strike probably.
jeff has small hands, well suited to his shitbrick
strike and before John. One cannot be a connoisseur of natural selection. that is not how connoisseur works. I cannot understand what your next sentence means, therefore cannot even critique it. "It wasn't a long ordeal" dislike the It there, also is ordeal the right word to describe a party. subject switching in the next sentence is very confusing.

your next paragraph is tryhard as fuck. fake and gay

lol fag

>>6809019
It kept me entertained for it's entirety. Good job.

Painted by the glow of the quite dwellings
I am the tallest man alive
and in the cool quiet of these chillicothe nights
each of my foot steps is a thunderclap
and my heart is lightning fast
trying to beat out of my chest where it will remain trapped
and at half past 11
I can see everything laid before me
in the dark
although I left on timid feet
strong legs carry me home
3 minutes before 12
and now a year or 2 more doesn’t
seem like such little time

>>6809369
*quiet

>>6809285
>lol what a fag
>yr writn sux bud
>your next paragraph is tryhard as fuck. fake and gay
>lol fag

I've never seen /lit/ in this form

>>6809369
is this about being drunk? this sounds like walking back from a party, drunk and as an artist. Dedalusian almost.

>>6809412
>never seen /lit/ in this form
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mockery

>>6809412
Sort of, I was drunk when I was walking. It's more about just enjoying the small moments in life.

>>6809369

Very nice to read. I like this anon. It reminds me of Slint's 'Don Aman' in a good way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-T63_DK8hc

Body and mind are failing. He isn’t one of the old heroes anymore. Condemned to a hospice bed, mired in a swamp of death and distant memories – how proud and great they must have been. When he blinks, everything seems to quickly change in between. People, the television screen, the weather. He’s just lying there, as the lights inside his head and heart switch off one by one. Everything and everyone moves on. Eventually, he won’t see anything at all – let alone feel.

They say he fought in a war. He survived the wounds that taxed his body and mind throughout the conflict, and bore the scars to prove his worth. His suffering. He fired machine guns at blood-lusty men with bayonets, repelling each charge; for that his comrades revered him as a hero, and the brass gave him a nice medal. It still sits at his bedside as he mumbles and blinks, as a reminder that he was once something.

Then after all that he apparently spent his post-war years hunting in the golden hills of South Australia. That didn’t work out though. Neither did the whole family thing.

People talked about how he was a man of few words (not that it would change on the eve of his death). Expecting him to talk was no better than expecting a dog to speak. But that was okay. There was little need for him to speak in his final years anyway, because no one ever came to see him.

>>6810413
Damn, man. That's grim. Most of it seems pretty good; written a lot like a monologue. Is that what it is? Any context? Although "blood-lusty" is a bit of an awkward word choice.

>>6810423
Yeah, I can see how awkward it might be. I was really trying to look for an adjective associated with violence. Retrospectively I could've just used a word like bloodthirsty, although it's a bit over the top.

Nah, no context really. But yeah, I intended to write it like a monologue. I spent about a year and a half volunteering at an old nursing home, and one day I just thought about my grandfather. So I wrote this I guess. He wasn't that lonely though - apart from that everything else is true more or less.

Wrapped around his left hand was a sheet of fine muslin, taut and fine; its delicate, fleeting breath hung gaily beneath. The workshop’s hardwood flooring pressed resiliently against his feet, stalling, resisting, stopping any and all wishful advances he had tried henceforth to make. Despite the pressure of this constricted movement, the fluid, flowing extensions of his person extinguished the emerging flame.

>>6810413
I'd avoid using cliche phrases like
>mired in a swamp of x
>man of few words
There is nothing really wrong with these per say but if you find a better way to express the same thing then I think it will be better.

>>6809205
>>6809074
>starts critique thread
>gets mad when his shitty writing is called out for what it is
hehe

http://pastebin.com/XEjAcZ7V

>>6810413
pretty gud
you could probably be a little less wordy here and there, but that's probably just me being pedantic

Is this to a short story?

>>6810928
it's a piece of shit story (and intentionally so) but as far as your writing goes it's pretty fatty
you should take some notes from Hemingway's book
I cant believe im critiquing this goddamn stupid story

"Pardon me while I don't listen to advice from someone who just took the least worst female option out of his social group, and called it skill. Anyone could do that. Fred could do that."

Fred smiles. "Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it skill.."

Interjects, while glaring. "No he couldn't. Don't be stupid. Not without my ten step program..."

"Ten steps up your ass."

"What do you do exactly? Head up in the clouds, reaching nirvana?"

"Name drop celebrities, Celine Dion. It's like sentence logic for morons... You following this Fred?"

>>6810947
Sorry. You are right, I was trying something new there. Hemingway is one of my favorite writers and people have told me I write too much like him so I'm straying away.

Here is something more serious and shorter.

Fifteen steps into the fairgrounds. Acid and heat from his stomach burned just behind his chin. His eyes, sparking blue and nearly shut, struggled to focus on the ferris wheel that rose above everything else, much like him, in the distance. Always out of place, he stood six-foot-six. With his long black hair now short in preparation to join the army, and his pale skin showing up his arms to just below the shoulder, he stood in the middle of it all with shaky knees.

James inched forward, unsure of where to be. Nobody expected him to be there and everyone glanced at him. It was hard not to. Without sleep and without sunscreen, he prayed for his protection. For the sun to stop shining and for the clouds to hide him deep under the atmosphere.

>>6810464
>fine muslin, taut and fine
come on
>delicate, fleeting breath hung gaily beneath
purple. you're trying too hard
> stalling, resisting, stopping
redundant. it's fine to use that sort of description, but in this case you aren't adding anything to the description, you're just unnecessarily describing something we got the gist of right away
>any and all
again, redundant
Keep trying. You can write purple prose. That's good. Seriously, not everybody can do that. It's a phase most new writers go through. But you said something in fifty words that you could have said in ten. Eloquence isn't everything.

Some stream of consciousness thing i did before. I haven't really done anything with it yet though.

Also sorry for no paragraphs or anything

http://pastebin.com/PS7xqrEs

Thuy Johnston (a name that (like Phuc Stevenson (named (by me, not his parents (government attorneys (I know what you(Katrina?)’re thinking, how did lawyers raise a postman and under what kind of class system does this novel operate?))) after the 2011 NBA champion Deshawn Stevenson)) implies (to assumption-prone readers) that Mrs. Johnston was pro-trad enough to take her husband’s (we’re being implicitly socially conservative (by not acknowledging the likelihood that she’s gay (or adopted or a pop star with a stage name)) for the sake of space (yes le parentheses man is economical as fuck with space)) last name but still asserted enough cultural dominance to give her child a decidedly ethnic (to Americans (UT didn’t stand for U of Tel Aviv or what have you)) first name. Marv “Yellow Fever” Johnston’s dainty Asian bride has the cultural steering wheel (or maybe they’re sticks for her (that’s too absurd to be earnestly racist (also I’m Asian (half (I mean Obama can make black jokes (is that the same thing? Yellow peril and Jim Crow Seattle but look at China’s GDP compared to every country in West Africa (which is to say we’re not in the same boat (which is to say I’m sorry for all the ching-chong jokes (but I still get the appropriation pass to name my characters Phuc and Thuy and Trang (oh shit you haven’t met her yet (“Trang West is an 11 year-old Nepali yak-milking enthusiast at George W. Bush (Honor the Texas flag (“just like you like it”)) Middle School …”)))))))))))) is a grad student at UT. She’s with Wynn despite a 7-year age gap and the murky (is it murky if she’s a woman? (yes)) ethics of a TA fucking a freshman undergrad.

>>6810950
Pay more attention to your grammar
>Fifteen steps into the fairgrounds.
>For the sun to stop shining and for the clouds to hide him deep under the atmosphere.
These are both fragments. It's easier to fix now than later.
>on the ferris wheel that rose above everything else, much like him, in the distance.
>on the ferris wheel that, like him, rose above everything else.
didn't loose anything
>Without sleep and without sunscreen
no
>Without sleep or sunscreen
always write it shorter when you can

>for the clouds to hide him deep under the atmosphere.
i liked this line

>>6810991
Woah. Thank you for this. The truth is I dropped out of high school and was living in the woods for a while. I know nothing about proper grammar or sentence structured. I simply write.

I seem to add a lot of unnecessary words in. Would you mind reading over one more thing of mine?

“We're a nation full of dumbbells”. James paused to laugh.

“It doesn't seem worth it.” He added.

“Seem worth it to what? Get in shape? James' friend Dylan asked.

“Seem worth it to spend hours lifting up and placing back down the weights. I could go for a run through the graveyard and I could skate fast down the ice. I could be outside bailing hay on the neighbour's farm or helping my father lay bricks at a new school, yet you recommend I stand or sit in that room with all those people to lift and drop the weights. I don't want to be there or around those types of people.”

“Those types of people. You mean like me?” Dylan asked again. They both laughed.

“Yes like you. It's all for girls right? If they'd only like me for my body, then I wouldn't like them for their mind!”

Liking the way he said that, James carried on thinking. He and Dylan had met each other at Arborist school. The school taught them how to identify fungus and it taught them how to safely climb a tree. Arborist school did not teach them how to pay attention, and Dylan fell from the top of the tall treaty oak that the school taught them how to safely climb. Dylan's climbing days were done and he quickly lost interest in the rest of school, so he stopped going. Because he couldn't run anymore, he started to lift things. A briefly used school book, and then two, and then three. He lifted them and then put them down. He did this a few times and it made him feel very sad. After a month of lifting books Dylan had realized he would always be sad. The books were replaced with weights and the stairs to his home were replaced with a makeshift aluminum ramp his father put together. Having a crippled son was very expensive and they lived with little

>>6810962
>that flashes in momentary glimpses of the divine.
redundant
>behind willowed wives
do you mean widowed?
>There is no rain come yet
eww
>There come yet no rain
>is all about
YOU DO THE HOKEY POKEY

What you've written seems to be pretty goddamn pointless and over-descriptive. Be that as it may, you're pretty good at pulling words out of your ass. I see a nice variety here. But you're also pretty vague. It left me with with the impression of a night scene from dragonball z or something, but that's probably just me.

Maj sat in the grass and chewed pensively on a grilled and seasoned sprig of gelgrain, roasted on Ket’s pikeblade. It didn’t taste amazing, but it was edible, and it wasn’t cooked meat, the thought of which still made his stomach churn. He sat under a large tree just outside of town. Sarca appeared to have no problem with the idea of meat; he tore at a sheet of dried jerky formerly stored in a pouch on his saddle, which sat beside him on the ground. He needed to eat more than Maj did, but he too was omnivorous, so feeding the large primate while travelling wasn’t usually a problem: Hutan typically just let him run off into the brush for an hour or so and he’d come back full and with red on his lips. He peered at the wall of the town. It was impressive. Not city impressive, but more than a town this size ought to be sporting. It appeared to be made of geltrees, the massive relatives of the grain these people all subsisted themselves on, all lashed together and treated to be strong and flame-retardant, each trunk dried into a defensive form, with their tops arching over the outside of the wall to prevent anyone climbing in. As he pondered whether Sarca could do it, the large gate of it opened, and a number of men walked out towards him, one very fat and heading the group, a couple other men dressed similarly to him, two lawkeepers with short swords and slings, and Ket.
Hutan stood up and did his best to look respectfully confident. The fat man pointed at him and said something in Cathanic. Ket said something—Hutan caught “Sennya-ai” in his words—and the fat man said, in Sennyai this time, “Who are you?”
“My name is Maj Hutan. I am just a traveler, passing through your country.”
“A Kjeshi man, dressed in Sennyat clothing, speaking Sennyai. Passing through my land with a mount equipped for war. Before we get to this creature I’m hearing about, and your involvement with that, I want to know what you are doing in my country in the first place.”
Hutan glanced at Sarca, and supposed that the three javelins and a sabre certainly didn’t speak to peaceful intentions. He looked back at the man. “I was a soldier, just out of training in the Sennyati Army. I was with my squad out on the field, when they abandoned me on the frontier, saying that I was cursed and would only bring ill fortune to the squad. I wandered, somewhat lost, until I found this man”—he gestured at Ket—“helped him, and accompanied him to this town.”
The fat man glared at him, thought for a moment. “They abandoned you, with a mount, weapons and rations to last you a trip across the border? Explain yourself.”

>>6811736
Hutan’s blood ran cold, but he kept his composure. “They left me with nothing but the armor I wore, and I managed to make my way back to the camp. When I got there, it was in the dead of night. I snuck in thanks to the watchman being a friend of mine. He predicted that the next incident would likely be murder. I agreed, and he looked the other way while I gathered supplies and struck for Ata’s light.”
“Why Ata’s light?”
“We were near the border of Sennyat and Cathan. I figured Vulð would be a good place to start over; I hear nobody cares where you’re from there, only that you can work. That’s also why I brought the weaponry.”
The man considered for a while, then said,”Well, Latt-Hutan, any man who steals from a Sennyat is a friend of mine, and any friend of mine is a friend of the town. However, we have only cleared one half of this tale, the second being the head of the gnarled beast which lies there. I am not a terribly superstitious man; I do not believe in curses, but I know of the things the Learned can do, and your people had quite a few of those, and schools to learn the art itself. How am I to know you did not simply conjure this beast?”
Hutan rolled up his sleeve, displaying heavy bruising and scratches on his arm. “Why would I conjure a thing which serves only to attack me?”
“Spells have been known to go awry.” An understatement, this.
“And I wouldn’t know how to make them go awry or otherwise. The schools you speak of were destroyed when I was just a child of three waves.”
This appeared to satisfy and surprise the man; his eyebrows rose. “A difficult life it must have been, for a man without a country.” He said something in Cathanic to his group, gestured to Hutan to follow. They walked back to the gate. “You may stay, for now. We will stable your ape, and give you a place to sleep. I am going to send men to try to recover the rest of the creature, the raferc, as old man Ket says. You will stay until they return, in case you are an illusionist of some sort. When that is confirmed, I will send word to the nobles at the capital. Let them send men to search the rest of the forest, and leave mine at home, hey?” He gave one powerful laugh, then held out his hand.
“I don’t believe I properly introduced myself. My name is Derisc Foelni; this is my town.”

>>6811736
>>6811740
here, might as well do some critiquing so as not to be a drain on the thread.

>>6811046
There's something stilted about your writing that I can't quite place. It might be that your dialogue and the bit describing who's saying it seem to be separate somehow, like they're completely different sentences. A lot of your sentences keep tacking on more of themselves with 'and', when you could vary it up with commas, colons/semicolons, or just splitting them into different sentences.

>>6810983
Ow. I know it's a joke, but fuck.

>>6809019
>nuts busted on a slut's butt
This was worth reading just for that gem, thank you.

Because Death is on vacation
Everyone gets a day off
To go to some yes-place
And mine is the ice cream factory
Where I lasted three days
As a teenager, boxing fudgsicles,
And there I am back on the line
That whispers like a long tongue
Dark prophecies about my co-workers
And just like before they come down
Faster and faster, and in my haste
I cut my finger on the edge of a carton
And pretty soon the foreman comes
Shouting down the line about
"Can it possibly be fudgsicles
With BLOOD on them,"
And he traces the trail to me
And starts bellowing like
A whole orchestra in a pit,
But this time, because
Death will be home soon,
I do not guiltily acquiesce
Like before, but instead
Unwrap a fudgsicle, and biting
Off a hunk down to the stick,
Say to him that he is beautiful,
That they are all beautiful,
And he should give them all
Vacations and raises in pay,
And just then, to everyone's
Astonishment, when it looked
As though he might really blow,
I just faded out, like in some films
Solid to vapor to wisp, to nothing,
But not before I scooped up an
Armful of bloody fudgsicles to take
Back with me, something frozen and
Sweet, and bearing the sticky mark
Of seriousness, my life so handily
Upon a stick.

The moonlight stung the young boy's eyes as he trotted along the path that traced the valley walls. The blurry glow from his flashlight bobbed around on the road ahead. Ahead sat a lonely stone cottage, perched a near cliff guarded by a rickety fence.
Beyond the cottage, in the distance, lay the orange lights of the city of Nalio, a field of sparks nestled on a canvas of black. A multitude of multicolored lights spread in a spiderweb across the valley floor. Along the rim of the valley ran an eerie glowing line; the Wall.
The boy's numb knuckles rapped against the door. Muffled footsteps approached, and the door creaked in, leaking warm light into the cold night. An old man stood in the door way. His kind face creased with a frown at the sight of his visitor.
“Hi Professor Harling,” the boy said timidly.
“Shouldn't you be at home, Peter?” the old man said sternly.
“I know,” said the boy.
“Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to know something.”
“What is it?” said the professor.
“I wanted to know why we're so perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why we never hurt each other. I read about the old people in that book you keep on your shelf. They lied and cheated and stealed from each other. Even… even killed each other.”
The professor sighed, and looked up at the stars.
“That was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
“Why?” Peter asked, eyes wide with curiosity.
“We learned,” said Professor Harling, “We became better people.”
“Oh,” said Peter, looking behind him, his eyes drinking in the moonlight. “What's outside the valley, Professor Harling?”
“Nothing,” said Professor Harling, “Forests, mountains.”
“Then why can't we leave?”
The sound of gravel crunching turned their heads. A man in a black felt coat and top hat approached. Peter's heart sank; it was his father.
“Peter, come home with me, right now. And there will be no more sneaking out at night, or you won't go to play with your friends till the first snow.”

>>6811955

It was so cold already, it couldn't be that long of a punishment. Nevertheless, Peter took his father's gloved hand, the felt enclosing his fingers. Peter's father glared at the professor, who returned nothing more than a knowing smile.
“Come on,” said Peter's father, dragging his son along the path. Peter gave Professor Harling one last glance before the old man closed the door.

Feedback? Particularly on how it reads. Description-wise, etc.. I've written 294,000 words, this is the opening, and I want to go back and revise, but I want to know how / what to do.

Help? Particularly the first two or three sentences of description. Why / how are they shit, and how can I fix them?

>>6811740
>Hutan’s blood ran cold,

Too cliche, I'd try to describe that feeling in a different way. Even if you just say "fear ran through him but he kept his composure" i think that'd be better.

>>6811736
>It didn’t taste amazing, but it was edible, and it wasn’t cooked meat, the thought of which still made his stomach churn.

Run on if you ask me. Too many commas.

"I didn't taste amazing, but at least it wasn't cooked meat"

That should convey the same sort of thing, assuming this guy hates cooked meat. But otherwise that sentence is hard as fuck to figure out.

>>6809019
James, this is complete garbage. This "let's describe human psychology at its most crude" is about 150 years old and its only purpose has been to barbarize its authors and readers. It's art for white niggers, for savages. Please read Beowulf and learn something about lyricism and noble feeling you pompous degenerate.

>>6811981
basically this. It was a really uninteresting read for me too OP
Your writing style to me is fine, just what you're writing about in particular seems really fucking stupid and drawn out

>>6809019

Run on sentences in a few parts, otherwise it's pretty good writing. Just for fuck's sake find something more interesting to write about. And drop the onomatopoeia because it's drawn out and stupid.At least put it in quotes and have the same amount of h's in each one.

>>6811955
>>6811959
If someone else has pointed this out it isn't my fault for redundancy, my modem shat itself.

It reads fine, but it seems contradictory that the moonlight is bright enough to sting his eyes, yet he still needs a flashlight. I do like the bit about the light bobbing, maybe add a bit about shifting shadows; I work night security and that's what gets me most about walking with a flashlight.
Also,
>Ahead sat a lonely stone cottage, perched a near cliff guarded by a rickety fence.
Either "near" and "a" need to be switched or that sentence is fucked.

I'm concerned that people are gonna see "We don't go outside The Wall" and dismiss it as derivative of that anime everyone's been pissing about. I'm also concerned that it is derivative of said anime.

>>6811736 here by the way

>>6811980
In context, he just fought a Scary Thing (the "raferc") that ended in the thing getting set on fire. So the idea is that he's not too into the smell of burnt meat at present. But I'll try to cut it down, I did have some reservations about that myself.

Clean up. You; are: room?
So says the say so, okay go.
Can we recite that last bit[question
Mark 4:45:we shall not bite t-
he(-man protractor of the yo(yo)-
universe[Mapquest has been dis(pussy
is fucking fire)able(ist asshole pricks)d.])–
"I just like to lick and lick and lick," she said
(that's what). Er, melon. *inanityIknow*
"Tootsie pops?" says me (me! me! me!
as I harken back to the terrible [terribly
great to, by twos, by fours, arc, tan, &c]
twos. Back to the point: it will all be
oversoon. Spacewillcollapseintoitself
anddissappearliketheselinesperiod

Clean up. You; are: room?
So says the say so, okay go.
Can we recite that last bit[question
Mark 4:45:we shall not bite t-
he(-man protractor of the yo(yo)-
universe[Mapquest has been dis(pussy
is fucking fire)able(ist asshole pricks)d)ust.])–
"I just like to lick and lick and lick," she said
(that's what). Er, melon. *inanityIknow*
"Tootsie pops?" says me (me! me! me!
as I harken back to the terrible [terribly
great to, by twos, by fours, arc, tan, &c]
twos.) Back to the point: it^2 will all be
oversoon. Spacewillcollapseintoitself
anddissappearliketheselinesperiod

Thank you mods.

>>6812009

Yeah, it's not a Titanfall hack (or whatever that anime is, I know what you'er talking about). Completely different story, I don't even watch anime. I actually got really pissed when I found out about that, cause I'd had this story written as such for like 3 years.

I will add in stuff about shifting shadows, and I will fix that sentence.

As for you:

>>6811736

> Maj sat in the grass and chewed pensively on a grilled and seasoned sprig of gelgrain

I would only have one adjective on gelgrain. Pick grilled or seasoned. I know that sounds picky but excess adjectives really bog stuff down for me.

I mean, I'd let some other anons agree with me first, I just like crisp writing that uses just the right adjective (even if it's not a conventional one) to describe something.

> roasted on Ket’s pikeblade.

I'd also remove this.

I gave critique of your second sentence in a nother post....

> He sat under a large tree just outside of town.

You already said where he was sitting; I'd have him look out "from the shade of a large tree" at the town. Just so it isn't redundant.

> Sarca appeared to have no problem with the idea of meat; he tore at a sheet of dried jerky formerly stored in a pouch on his saddle, which sat beside him on the ground.

Where is sarca sitting? Next to Maj? Across from him?

Alot of this sounds like exposition, a kind of RA Salvatore third person omniscient type thing. I'm sure you have no idea what this means, but it's kind of like, telling not showing, while also overloading the reader with a lot of info instead of giving little tidbits one at a time.

Like,

> but he too was omnivorous, so feeding the large primate while travelling wasn’t usually a problem:

I mean it's not that bad, just focus on the scene more than the exposition. Give a tidbit here and there, but the more you explain, the more focus the scene loses.

Hope this is helpful. I'll read a bit more and see if I have any other ideas.

>>6812043

What is this? It's kind of intriguing.... I feel like with a bit more structure it could actually evoke something.

>>6812061
>excess adjectives really bog stuff down for me
Noted

The pikeblade has a fire enchantment, this is established before the given excerpt and that bit explains how he grilled the food without getting into the town.

I will fix the bits about seating arrangements.I haven't read Salvatore, but the "narrative camera" (surely there's an accepted term for this? Enlighten me if so, "point of view" doesn't feel quite right) serves as kind of a stream of consciousness at times, even though it switches between several characters in the long run. I will probably remove the bit about feeding Sarca, or at least displace it to dialogue, or to a later spot where it would be more relevant.
I do appreciate your input, thank you.

>>6812083
Just seems like ironic /lit/ memeing to me.

Nobody in the bar, it being a landlocked Mexican town type of bar, seemed capable of appreciating the sublimely virtuosic guitar performance happening before their eyes, or ears for that matter. A band of three, bound by the rubberbanded talent of a 30-something year old Converse rocking string strummer from a subdued Heavy Metal altereality, played tune after tune perfectly: Come Together, Lithium, Kashmir, licks from Hispanic rock 'n' roll, all in instrumental supremacy and charmingly broken english. It was as if the crowd proclaimed: these are not the chords you were looking for. I was mesmerized by Hector's (I'm imagining that's his name, seems so fitting) guitar solo, the rapid riffs, lighting fast fret work, flawless tempo, creative use of the mic stand to create a unique reverb I had never heard, the very harmonic presence of that Mexican trio–all in vain. After each performance my clap was alone. I resented the deaf around me, but then, *he* came in.

>>6812083
/lit/ has been infected for some time by some mutant species of millenial hipster, some of them tripfags, unlike this anon, who adhere to some kind of post-semantic notion that fractured syntactical and morphemic strategies confer artistic status upon their babble. Ideational descendants of e.e. cummings, and echoes of the language poetry spasm which played out in a previous decade, and was also based on hatred of the canon.

>>6809019

Come hither, all ye weary souls!
Ye heavy-laden sinners! come;
I’ll give you rest from all your toils,
And raise you to my heav’nly home.

They shall find rest that learn of me;
I’m of a meek and lowly mind;
But passion rages like the sea,
And pride is restless as the wind.

Bless'd is the man, whose shoulders take
My yoke, and bear it with delight!
My yoke is easy to his neck,
My grace shall make the burden light."

Jesus! we come at thy command,
With faith, and hope, and humble zeal;
Resign our spirits to thy hand,
To mould and guide us at thy will.

>>6812083
>>6812091

No memeing, just me! me! enjoying some bashful word fun that isn't meant to be Taken (4, starring Liam Neeson, Barbara Walters, Gregory Peck, and Elijah Wood (you please stop doing this, it's really bothering me)) too seriously. And thanks first anon, really lightens my already dampened spirits.

I was walking down the street beating my meat when I noticed something slowing down dragging my feet. I looked down I looked up and side to side but nothing was there it took me by surprise.
I said fuck it walked home and took off my shoes and took good hard look inspecting like blues clues, I had stepped in shit.

>>6812108
Jesus, a 17th century pastor would spit on this. Don't quit your day job.

>>6812120
Quiet, you.

>>6812103

Ah. Honestly I think it's kind of good, it reminds me of Douglas Hofstader's article about nonsense in Metamagical Themas.

I think it has a potential, it feels kind of comfy to read. Like I can just read over it without really needing to think, and occasionally it will say something to my mind. I dunno. Weird feeling I have about it.

>>6812091

> I will fix the bits about seating arrangements

Yeah I mean just describe it. Think about what you are picturing in your head, then make sure to say enough so that the reader can get the important parts.

> .I haven't read Salvatore, but the "narrative camera" (surely there's an accepted term for this? Enlighten me if so, "point of view" doesn't feel quite right) serves as kind of a stream of consciousness at times, even though it switches between several characters in the long run. I will probably remove the bit about feeding Sarca, or at least displace it to dialogue, or to a later spot where it would be more relevant.

Basically, he'll do something like this (and I'm making up shit here, this isn't his actual writing):

"Boggor the dwarf staggered up the hill. He had fallen down many times, but dwarves were stubborn, and had a natural stability in mud"

Or something like that. That's actually not as obnoxious as he gets sometimes.

or he'll go off like

"the dwarf thought of his home. Dwarves were honor bound to their clans, and he would do anything to make it back."

It's that kind of thing that breaks the tension. Neither of my examples really captured what Salvatore does. I like his writing but it pisses me off sometimes because he loses focus to go off and talk about other shit. Like Tolkien, but at least Tolkien kept it kind of relevant.

Yeah it's a hard thing to explain. Just don't force exposition. That was something I was taught as a D&D DM, don't cram your worldbuilding down the players' (basically the readers') throats. Be a striptease. Create intrigue with your exposition. Say something that evokes interest, and makes the reader want to know more about the world. Not just this and that about this species / race.

It's a hard thing to explain, I hope I conveyed some of it.

But yeah the rest looks decent. Just minimize adjectives as much as you can. At the very worst, you'll improve your word choice, and you can always add on more adjectives later.

Also fuck adverbs unless they are interesting. Don't say he walked "slowly", use a word / adjective that it more evocative. Even if it doesn't fit. Like he walked slovenly, I dont know. Slovenly isn't even an adverb, but it's more interesting than "slowly", you know? Others might disagree on this, however, so don't take what I say at face value.

>>6812125

If you ever feel the need to look in the mirror again, don't. Just unbuckle your belt, unzip your pants, pull down your drawers, and commence staring at what you literally are.

>>6812120

I actually kekked at this. I'm probably gonna get buried in a shitstorm of hate for liking it though.

>>6810962

> My attire was black and my hair was as well.

Ew. I get what you're going for, but rephrase it.

> An unkempt Scottish beard and my untied brown boots show me as a man who does not consider the aesthetic.

Good line, even though it reeks of a fedorafag character.

> Walking from my also black car to the front of the bookstore, I see many people. All in bright, clean clothing.

"As I walk, I see many bright, clean-clothed people" ?? maybe this instead?

> Their shirts with collars all seem to be ironed and their hair typically gelled. Their necks trimmed perfectly.

I like the poetntial here, especially the last sentence. Remove "typical" though, that sounds too pretentious. Unless you are really going for an over the top pretenious character.

> Walking into the store I duck my head under the threshold. I only stand at 6'3" but I am used to ducking under thresholds like the doors of the subway or the entrance to my bedroom.

Just say "I am used to ducking under things" you don't need to provide all these examples. No one gives a shit.

The biggest question I have here, is, why do I care? You need a hook of some kind in the second paragraph. You are over describing stuff and people are goign to be like "why the fuck am I reading this" and give up.

But you have potential.

>>6812125
Are you trying to meme me? That poem was written by Isaac Watts.

>>6812149
This one is less offensive, yes. Many of them are overtly hostile to any linguistic convention at all, which to my mind defeats the point. It would be nice if some program were decipherable.

>>6812151
That was admittedly clever.

>>6812235
Well yeah, who throws out the 17th century of all eras? Much more satisfying to pick an even number, or a multiple of five. I looked it up and thought I'd be a shit for my own amusement.

Came back from work and saw we have a successful critique thread. Awesome.
>>6809369
ayyy thanks
>>6811797
it's some kind of primal satisfaction in that rhyme
>>6811981
>>6811993
I've read Beowulf three times since high school. I do agree that this is an exhausted trope. This is not a comprehensive story, so I'm not trying to be anything more than crude in about 200 words. Still, thanks for the input. "uninteresting" is something I can work on, and the fact that my writing style is 'fine' tells me that other circumstances in my stories may warrant attention.
>>6811999
I appreciate your concrete problems with my writing. Run-on sentences are intentional; things like these are problems for people who don't have a good enough handle on grammar to be able to correctly write a sentence, but for others it becomes a device to be able to fuck with syntax. The onomatopoeia was a bit of a stretch; I was drunk and reading Ulysses when I thought of it and switched out words.

Thanks guys. These posts are so much better than the first couple replies.

>>6810464
I'm generally a fan of purpleish prose, but there comes a point where the wordiness obstructs the ability to picture what is happening. The first two clauses separated by the semicolon, for example, are both descriptors of the same thing, and by the time I get done with the second clause the original image has eluded me.

In the grass of the fields of the park sat under a tree a man with a book. The scent of the pine tree brought to his memory the days of his childhood, as he felt as a child to the world, again, or at last.

His playful spirit had long been asleep, but he saw it right there, in the eyes of that laughing kid, playing baseball with his friends, what lacked in him. What lacked in him was outside himself, he just had to look at others. And right there, that men walking his dog, his mind probably wandering and worrying about work, but appreciating the dog's presence, and over there, another man and a woman also walking together a dog, thinking about their problems also, appreciating each others company. It has probably occurred to the man, or to the woman, or to both, but if it did occur to both they are not aware of it, that the dog represents their unity. They are not married, one can tell. But the dog belongs to both, one can also tell, it's their therapist. Ah, but you're wandering now, put your eyes on the book.

But, where did the crane's base fall? Syria wondered to himself as he looked atop the spidery, creaking structure. The first leaves fell, some of them landing upon its plinth, its feet nowhere to be seen beneath the sleepy, cloying abyss.

I cucked myself, hard in the pants. Why did I cuck myself? Because, I think thats what is the good thing to do. Well. Maybe it wasnt? But After all the good things happen to those who wait, after all. So back into the van i went - just me and my dog. Just me and my dog as it always was and my fat wife got fucked upside down in the room back home, I guess when I return I will go home and cry and cut myself again.

>>6812103
The only notion I adhere to is the notion of my own self and character, my frand. Anyway, I find it odd that for someone so critical of the hyper-experimental and unconventional that you've managed to write such a syntactically crippled non-sentence as your second.

>>6813092
Yet you received the semantic charge of its message loud and clear. And why - in addition to advertising your schizophrenic devotion to onanistic contradiction - are you such a bigot against the differemtly-abled? Bigot.

>>6813092
Ableist bigot. Narcissistic solipsist. Suck this guy's dick >>6812149 He's falling for it.

>>6810937
I realise sometimes I go a little overboard with words, so as of late I've been trying to cut down on them.

Not a short story or anything really, just some little tidbit that I felt like writing.

http://pastebin.com/3VqLjzBj

There was a man who ate only plantains. People complained about his habit of eating only plantains. They would say, “Man who eats only plantains. Eat something else. Eat something else or face capital punishment.”

He tried them fried. But the people still complained. “Man who eats only fried plantains. That is cheating. Why can’t you not eat something that is not plantains. This is a circumcised order from the courts. You have been warned.”

The man was self-reliant as a railroad. He had a shiny face that sang with liberty. He cherished the liberty of eating only plantains.

But the people would not let him be free. No matter how much he fought. And he tried to eat plantains frozen. But the people said, “Man who eats only frozen plantains. This is a filed legal order. You have been registered on the list.” And they would walk away.

He sat there by the ocean eating plantains. And he smiled because he was so happy because plantains.

One day the people came as he was eating plantains and they pushed him into the water. He never learned to swim. He was too busy eating plantains. He drowned.

Here is what I have so far of a new short story I started working on this morning. I am trying to keep it less experimental, more of a straight narrative, but am worried that the writing might just be boring.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated and will be returned. I will do some critiques once I get back from the gym.

cup in the salt cellar my big dick nigga
i have to engorge your stoat
too long a stick is nonsensical, too long a stick in nonsense
that way is nonsensical, much like he
sex is nonsensical, much like she
chair number eleven oh shit nigga get down

Stuck on this:

I REMEMBER

Back in '03 sometime
Hank stole the new Ford.
Troopers found him. Told Grandma
he screamed for her to open the door.

But that's not for us,
curling on old mattresses
over a Manhattan sweet enough
to chain us both to a memory infinite.

Yet it has still bleached.
Rusted, beneath new beds
and endless haphazard nights,
where we grope towards $9.99 days.

So I'll keep them here.
Scraps of paper in the back draw
that I'll pass over, years from now,
Looking for my car keys.

>>Here's one I know needs alot of work, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

An Antipas culture of eager washers;
Arjuna’s exposure come swift,
To compile and morph to Admetus,
Sliming from a cunt, out came Fetus.
Their ways are a corpus of tomes,
A graveyard of undead acumen;
The murderous insensitive sensitives –
Silencing all wants in a binge.

Veneration shines from within,
From purloin pores, like soulless sheiks,
Oozing an unholy oil;
Lathering in our heart’s basin.
Revering ourselves through the eighth sacrament
Evolution takes a horrible turn,
Turning our purpose against we mortals:
Addiction for that instant of drive.

Hue blinds us
They strike thus:
That man is woman,
Lioness her reverse equal
Daniel grew old behind the stone
As the cohort exchanged manes in sequel.
Thane reverends support but one,
The holy god we all have,
Striving, burning Passion
For yearning parity in life . . .
Find it there, no here,
I tell you, find it not anywhere.

Excise and eradicate!
Eradicate and excise!
For the truths of ethic decency
In too few minds are transcribed.
Death to the infidels!
Disgust to indecency!
Damn the left-right idea!
Abolish all abolitionists.
In us, destroy complacency.

Thread seems to have died down. New writer here, not too concerned about doing anything in particular or fancy, I just want to tell stories.

>>6815905
I have a question. Do you know much about boats and fishing? I know nothing about it and even if it's simple this describes it well without having me lost. A big hurdle I have writing is having the story come to mind but knowing nothing of the setting, so I research everything and lose interest. Also, I enjoyed it, would like to see more

>>6811050
Thanks for the criticism. I went back and got rid of the bits you pointed out (also it was supposed to be widowed must have been tired whilst writing that part). They are kinda silly looking back.

It was supposed to have a sense of slightly over-described vagueness but I may not have executed it as well as I hoped.

The president of America invited all the other presidents over his house. They had a slumber party.

They got cozy in their sleeping bags and told ghost stories. They talked about nuclear disarmament. When they made too much noise the secret guard had to come and tell them quiet down. Get some sleep.

When the guard left they played truth or dare. Truth – Iran has a secret weapon! Dare – shoot a big missile at the Ka’ba. The game was too much fun and it was so goofy. They ran out of cheesy balls which was bad because everyone loved cheesy balls. Even Iran where you can’t have fun.

America said to Arabia why can’t girls in Arabia have fun. Arabia said because girls have cooties.

Now was time to eat pizza. This was the fanfare of the world, for all the countries to eat pizza together. Pizza is a New York invention.

The moon hanged still. He did not want the night to end because the presidents had so much fun together. They asked the moon do you want pizza. He said, no, it’s quite alright. I am already made of cheese. I do not need any more.

The moon tipped his top-hat and did a Charleston dance. And the American president smiled so big to see the moon dance so happy like that.

The sun came up and said, the party is now over. Everyone was sad to leave. The American president said goodbye to his friends.

>>6817579
Vonnegut fan detected

>>6809019
Maybe this belongs to /mu/ because these are lyrics
I think you can figure out what it's about

had a bad trip, girl pulled me out of it, got attached

>>6817600
The odd thing is I do not like Vonnegut at all but I guess this writing is similar to his style

>>6817579
tiem 4 antropic discriptions of cuntries :3

>>6817759
why are you trying to imitate him so poorly then?
vonnegut has some really interesting things to say and not liking him "at all" is kind of dumb.

>>6817850
I wasn't trying to imitate him, that's my point

>>6818343
yeah but i really don't think that that's a truthful point

>>6818358
i don't know, maybe subconsciously i was influenced by his approach. i didn't consciously model it on his writing, though

>>6818394
anyway i shouldn't just say useless things, so i apologize

i can't even say i 100% dislike what you wrote; it just wouldn't be sustainable. even towards the end of your selection i began to get irritated with the lack of nuance. vonnegut does a good job at balancing his tone, i feel, and that's something you could work at.

The cliche that forms the framework for a child’s social contract is this: “If you have nothing nice to say don’t say it at all.” She had early memories of sunny playgrounds and smiling adults saying things like this to mean kids, often after a verbal fight. What she hadn’t realized at the time was how this simple phrase was stripped down. It was a skeleton of what it suggested. What had grown inside of her, as a suspicion, as a general air, was that silence always said something. Her problem was that she never truly knew what it said. She knew the people opposite her were kind, and even a few of them supported her, always trying to make her feel comfortable in social situations, but she could never fully decode their true feelings from the gestures and slight glances that they would often give off.
What happened in the fall of Sophomore year was something that she could never shrug off. She had believed in what her brother told her, that it was “going to be a great year,” and that Sophomore year is “typically easy.”
She had no time to consider academic difficulty. She finished her work without thinking, but often, she would lapse into a trench of emptiness.

okay my daily story is 6 pages long and I'll be giving a post a critique for each page except for the first.

1/6

>>6818427
irritating handwriting

>>6818427

2/6

>>6815905

I would pare back to basic sentences until you can coherently write long ones in present tense. Not being mean, it's just that your scene feels like a cartoon of what you're describing rather than what you're describing itself, and while that's fine for effect, I have a feeling you're not doing it intentionally. Go back and build forward.

I think it's good but you should write more simply. I think there's something to be said for the 'less is more' cliche.

For example, I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunes and came across one line which communicated so much, just one delivered line of dialogue and the attached narration to that line.

Tl;Dr be simpler

>>6818445

3/6

>>6818436

sorry but I simply cannot write any other way

I use long S's and epsilons for short S's (ending S's), the greek Z, and 3 for Y. It's the only way I can write without thinking about forming the letters or picking up the pencil every few words.

>>6817587

> there was a pause
> seemingly to herself
> C's green eyes glared at him

tighten it up a bit

>>6818454

4/6

>>6812102

> happening before their eyes, or eats for that matter

really dislike this

> bound by the rubberbanded talent

on the other hand this is a bit nice

> (the rest of the sentence)

too much, not very much artistry past that part I liked, rework it

> After each performance my clap was alone.

awkward but onto something

> I resented the deaf around me, but then, *he* came in.

" "

>>6818466
Still irritating. You haven't typed this out? If not, plz do. Nobody cares that you're the torchbearer for teh fucking long s.

>>6818453
Care to share it?

>>6818466

5/6

>>6817420

I mean it's very basic and there's really a lot of stilted metaphor there. The snakes metaphor just feels jammed in, for example. Good writer to study for subtle metaphor is probably Gass, notably Heart of the Heart of the Country. Another writer I love for his fun metaphor is Brion Gysin, probably the only non-hack to come out of the Beats.

>>6818497

6/6

>>6818472

> Still irritating.

Sorry that you are irritated.

> You haven't typed this out?

Clearly not. I never type out my exercise stories.

> Nobody cares that you're the torchbearer for teh fucking long s.

I got in the habit a while ago and since my T's and short S's can look similar, and since it's easy to tell a short s ending from a t ending in context, I use long the long S. It's just an F without the cross, and it's easy on the hands for me to write. I don't have any motive other than it being habit and rather fun to write with.

>>6811736

starts off with way too much summarization. There's no joy in uncovering meaning or context in this, it's served to the reader on a plate. Not that you should write for an audience, per se, but you should certainly not summarize unless you know what you're doing and are a skilled writer.

You can write but you should simplify for a while. You could portray half that scene more elegantly:

> Maj sat in the grass and chewed a grilled sprig of gelgrain.

the next sentence is fragmented and turns the character into more of your puppet than anything.

> Sarca appeared to have no problem with the idea of meat; he tore at a sheet of dried jerky formerly stored in a pouch on his saddle, which sat beside him on the ground.

how about

> Sarca had no beef with the idea of meat

okay jokes aside

> Sarca tore at a sheet of dried jerky, appearing to have no problem with the idea of meat.

just a rough lathing

>>6818477
"How old is he?" the policeman asked Mrs. Reilly.

"I am thirty," Ignatius said condescendingly.

Every word from her mouth was
Empty
And with every passing moment
As the sun pulled the earth
Closer, and
Closer
He found something he had been
Looking for
In her
Emptiness

>>6818542
Yeah that is good stuff.

>>6818497

This is all kind of obnoxious. Too obviously aping off Faulkner.

>>6818618

Every word from your poem is
Empty

Rewrite it please and post it here again, or just explain it

>>6818534
I appreciate the advice, but could you explain exactly what you mean by summarizing?

>>6819481

thanks for the critique. I believe you now that it's another day, I wrote that late last night and I think it shows unfortunately. It's fragmented and there's only one line in there I like. Not sure about the Faulkner comparison though, if anything I was probably trying to emulate Malcolm Lowry. Mind explaining?

(I'm not too hurt if you pick it apart, I write one every day and I have some hits and many misses)

>>6819574

> He peered at the wall of the town. It was impressive. Not city impressive, but more than a town this size ought to be sporting. It appeared to be made of geltrees, the massive relatives of the grain these people all subsisted themselves on, all lashed together and treated to be strong and flame-retardant, each trunk dried into a defensive form, with their tops arching over the outside of the wall to prevent anyone climbing in.

this could be revealed in many more exciting ways, for example. Instead we're just told what the city is and looks like. I hate this piece of advice -- "show don't tell" -- but it's a good credo to keep in mind.

iunno sorry dude maybe I can help more later, I didn't sleep much and I'm pretty tired

>>6819719
I'd actually really appreciate it if someone would revise that passage to illustrate proper use of that credo, just so I can properly understand what I should do differently.

Every evening out of the days led to the stooping stride of this odd girl. She always missed the last train to brighten up the beach, then slept with allegators, buried deep in the silt. Her skin was caked in mud each morning and flaked off as the sun beat down.

whatever it was for you that i was feeling
im barely able to write here
'cause im far past the healing
and of those emotions that had such control over me
left little enough that you'll never have to see
how the particles of dust made my eyes teary sometimes
it was never tears, i swear
as if i'd ever let you know
what i held inside the tender worlds of my own
i would never neither dare in your eyes to stare
and say baby i never ever cared
because if not yours then whose torment
made my mind so much to falter
world reshaped, time's been spent
if i could i would alter
only present, but nothing else

>>6809019
>>6810413
>>6810464
>>6810983
>>6812043
>>6812102
>>6812108
non substantial vomit. didn't read the thread far past this.
its not a cliche when its said that you really need to bring something of your own in the story. this is just bullshit you read elsewhere and decided it sounds smart, good, acceptable and profound but it doesn't.
if i can see through it, so can anyone else. so can your future potential colleagues famous writers and producers and critics. seriously it's either you make some loud bang with your work to get others love it or into the trash you go
most cliche books and movies you see around bring in something new, believe it or not. or they just have enough humility to line up and do the story fine, no pretentiousness and going over the top. stephenie meyer did it, so can you i believe
they can shit over that woman all they want, but she sat down and wrote her story, HER story and made billions and got jobs to thousands of people. also hunger games. for less pretentious examples. but i guess ill never get 50 shades of grey
it proves if nothing, that bad is still better than pretentious and fake that makes people cringe

You're walking through the woods as the day is just beginning to settle and a mere hour before the moon will begin to take it's shift. Children are joyfully running past you with bright smiles on their face with white teeth that had yet to be yellowed by time. The sound of their laughter and cajoling, as well as tiny feet snapping twigs bring life to the forest.

You can see up ahead a clearing in the woods with a large boulder where a man was sat, legs crossed as though meditating. Gathered below the rock was an audience made of tiny yet to be men and tiny yet to be women with pine needles and dirt bringing the smell of the earth to their once clean, well laundered bottoms.There were adults present, but only in body, in spirit they were no different from those sat at the foot of this stone stage formed by the earth it's self. Though their knees may have cracked as they took their seats, or their backs may not have been as comfortable as they once were on dirt floors, their eyes and ears still waited with all the same anticipation as years past.

Finally you take your seat among them, dirt caking your hands as you reach down to lower your body gently to the floor. The man stood and awoke from his meditative state, which brought a hush across the crowd. The children's eyes, with their tiny chins turned upwards, widened and glowed as if there were fireworks in the sky.

Then he spoke.

>>6820470

man you're not wrong in the first part but you're obvious bait in the second part

>>6820575 (cont)


"Ok....

Please allow me to tell you the stories of...the Masters of the Dutch.


They say the story begins with a Druid eh-Anony-ehhh Whatchamacallit. Now young Whatchamacallit was a virtuoso in the crafts of the druids, adventurers travelling far and wide to the little town of Riverfalls for his concoctions,cures and catholicons. As a matter of fact that's how he met another character in this story...Xuhatl the spirit warrior who eh...became famous for his schizophrenia. So here in the small city of Riverfalls was young Whatchamacallit, Xuhatl and oh right! Duke can't forget duke...The trio sat alongside the river in the woods, perched upon their logs. Little did they know that lady adventure had her eye on them that evening."

Xuhatl took a long drag from a rolled cigarette with an herb of Whatchamacallit's own design. He began to speak through the smoke he still held in his lungs, portions of it escaping his mouth like little ghosts.
"Whatchamacallit..."

"Yeah?" the young master said leaning forward from his throne on the log to pinch the cigarette between two fingers.

"I can hear my great-grandmother, she's telling me how disappointed she is for me not bearing any children."

Whatchamacallit took a long drag from the cigarette staring into his companion's eyes with silence.

"RUFF!" the ever loyal duke barked, looking up at the young master with eyes filled with desire and a tongue dripping with moisture.

Whatchamacallit then leaned in exhaling a cloud of smoke into the canine's face. He took another quick hit from the cigarette and examined it's embers before passing it to Xuhatl before replying in a relaxed tone.

"Tell her to uh...you know tell her to fuck herself."

Xuhatl's body exploded with smoke in laughter then a fit of choking. He coughed for a while, assumed a pose of putting his hands to his hips and shaking his head. He was then overran by a fit of the giggles. Some time passed before he responded. "She's mad."

"What?" responded Whatchamacallit.

His mind had escaped their current setting and had began to nest elsewhere before being called back down to earth by his indigenous friend. All this while duke's now dry (cottonmouth) tongue searched the ground.

>>6820591 (cont)

"Do you think I could get a girlfriend? I always feel like when ever I approach a girl I always feel like there's an owlbear sitting on my chest clawing my courage and eating my genitals. You know what I mean? I mean do you think I look good?" Xuhatl struck a pose.

"I"
"Uh?" xuhatl placed his hand on his hip while leaning in.
"I"
"Eh?"xuhatl stuck his arms up in the air twisting them above his head and extending his pelvis.
"I"
"Ah?"Xuhatl removed his head piece and covered the bottom half of his face.
"I"
"Eh?" Xuhatl vogued.

"I think you're alright." Whatchamacallit finally broke through. "The joint's out..."

"Oh my bad" Xuhatl said while passing the joint to the masterful druid.

"It's alright just-" sleeves? nope. "let me find-" back pocket? no. "my tinders." Not in his satchel either.

"Damn. I must have left my tinders in the shop..."

"Should we go get it then?"

A moment of silence between the two. Meanwhile duke tended to his nether regions with great ecstasy, tail wagging and foot thumping.

"Nah it's too far. Why not just ask that guy?" the Druid said, his druid robes hanging from his outstretched druid arm. His hand sighted for a man with a pony tale dressed in crimson robes (which was complimented with a crimson corsette.)

"Excuse me sir? Do you have some tinders?" Xuhatl asked through a thick accent.

"I'm no sir. I'm an enchantress!" the lady said turning around revealing a beat to fuck face. "Dear Nergal, your eyes..."

Xuhatl at this point had tuned the woman out, his body frozen in place. All he could hear was the sound of his heart beating. All he could taste was social ineptitude and all he could feel was the gentle breeze against his nipples. He slowly began to regain control of his body.He reached for his spiked club, his hands so stiff they felt as if they were made from stone, and took a firm grasp of it's leather handle. A cyclone of thoughts grew in his head, no doubt whispers from the ancient spirit giving him guidance. "I love you." "Kill her." "Food." screamed and whispered the ancient spirit all at once.

"Did you get the tinders?" Whatchamacallit called out to his friend who was like an ant on the horizon. Xuhatl's tiny figure waved an arm beckoning for the druid to come.

>>6820599 (cont)

Duke heard a whistle from a place unknown and looking up he saw his master walking off into the distance but that was not all he saw. The loyal hound saw colors for the first time. He felt a strong urge to follow but his body felt as if it weighed 10 fold. So despite his desire to follow he remained pooch locked; forced to admire the world around him and think of all the questions that doggy-kind had been pondering since the first fall of the sands of time.

"Why do they call them beggin strips if they taste like bacon?"

"OH WHAT THE FUCK XUHATL!" shouted the young master.

"I'm sorry." the indigenous spirit warrior said in a meek voice.

"She doesn't even have any tinders!" the young master said while dropping the slain Echantress' satchel on her (5/10 body) corpse.

"I-I-I just...I don't know what came over me...it's something with talking to girls."

"Talking?! You killed a bitch...Man!" for some reason Whatchamacallit felt the need to punctuate that sentence with "man" perhaps it was the overwhelming power of cliches.

"I ...I'm sorry."

"Oh well...that's good I'm sure she's glad to hear that." responded the druid as a fly landed on a freshly exposed piece of exposed brain.

"What do we do?"

"Ok look...We'll dump her in the river."

The two adventurers picked up the corpse by arms and legs before placing the corpse back down again and pausing for a moment so xuhatl could scoop what was left of the brain on the former' (ugly) woman's back. They carried her over to the water's edge and on the count of 3.

"1....2...3!"

Threw the body into the river...well...

"You know...they should really call this place creekfall..." Whatchamacallit said staring at the corpse laid upon some wet pebbles and (very) shallow water.

"I'm fucked! Oh boy I'm fucked...." Xuhatl began to enter another whirlwind of voices before being stolen from it by a strong slap across the face by his friend the masterful druid.

"Look I'll think of something just give me a minute..." said the druid while chewing his fingernail which was a habit he tended to rely on while thinking. Moments later inspiration struck which (typically of 90s movies) caused him to stare at his fingers.

>>6820603 (cont.)

The sun was beginning to set, the colors of it's magnificence reflecting off of wet stones of colors purple and grey. The cadence of woodpeckers filling the sonic canvas above the gentle whisper of the wind as it cradled autumn leaves to their resting place amongst the faded pine needles and the twigs and branches they once knew. The sound of tearing flesh and cracking bones singing like violins over this (mildly) pleasant description of natures sounds. The slurping of human fat and intestines ; the cellos.

"Ohh key...Ewe dun' tell" the massive bear slurped up the remainders of some intestine. "Anyone about this..." he paused to suck a patch of skin off of his massive bear claw. "Got it?" he said while pointed a finger at Xuhatl who's back was turned.

"Yes.....are-....Are you finished?"

"Mhm..." the masterful bear druid said with a sigh while a light glow overcame his body. It was mere seconds before what was once the body of a kodiak or a bear of even greater size climbed backwards through the evolutionary ladder into a human form. (Animorphs style, but don't tell anyone or I'll get sued.)

"Now we'll go back into town and tell everyone some bullshit story of how we found this....this ugly lady like molesting or raping some princess or something and noone will think any different ok?"

Xuhatl nods.

"This stays between you and me...this is a secret we take to our graves. You me and duke."

The loyal hound was now in the background of this conversation pooping the artifacts of a hell of a trip.

"Got it." the schizophrenic bpd tribal spirit warrior with a very close connection to the ancient spirits replied.

Now with their adventure over they headed back to town.

"How did it taste?" asked xuhatl as the three figures The Greatest Druid of All Time, the Noble Tribeswarrior, and their Loyal friend disappeared on the horizon.

The End.

>>6820470
Rofl nothing can be said in this thread that this guy would think is original, because we all use words that others have used inescapably. He's perpetually stuck in the first 5 minutes of angst in the pomo dilemma.

Joke's on him I can't even read.

>>6820470
this man has a point

>>6820575
This man has a problem

malbec. clambe? lame ce? albemc. becalm. that's it
he stares at the dusty bottle at the end of the bath, a halfeaten 99 cent candle jutting out of the top, solidified dribbles clinging to the side.
this is a relaxing bath, he thinks. i am relaxing.
the water was too hot when he got in, and to deal with this he performed a stupid slow motion dance, standing in the painful steaming water, lifting one foot out at a time when he could bear it no more, until gradually his skin acclimatised to it. then agonisingly sliding his body in, step by step. now his body is mostly submerged, except his knees, his upper arms (resting on the sides) his small penis, and his expansive gut, a film of chemical bubblebath covering his exposed skin. and of course his head, which is sweating intensely.
maybe some more wine will help me relax, really enjoy this experience, he thinks. he takes a swig from the bottle at his side (also malbec) and feels even hotter and sweatier.
fever ray is jangling from his phone he has set up on the side, urgent and unsettling. why the fuck did he think this album was the perfect bath music? it's kind of tropical i suppose, he concludes, and makes the best of it. patches of orange bathroom rot fill the tiles around him, adding nicely to the tropical feel. he picks up the nail clippers from the side of the bath and there is a dark patch of rust remaining. the whole place is simply disgusting. he sets to work, clipping the months old toenails down, letting the fragments drop into the murky bathwater
becalm is a good anagram of malbec, he thinks, if i ever write a crossword i should remember that
he fiddles with his bellybutton, and is alarmed to find a strange residue under his nails. don't think about it, it's ok
gosh it's nice to have a relaxing bath

Lightning drops with blinding brilliance,
Fervid flashes fill the black air!
Beating glows pulse in his eyeballs,
Danger flickers in his pupils!
Ichor courses, charged with anger,
Pumped by choler in his dark heart!
On his face his temples quiver,
Breath sweeps in and out his nostrils!
Ev'ry movement, ev'ry action's
Driven by his heaving heartbeat,
Spurred on forward by his fury!

>>6821094

This is far to flowery for the carriage underneath. Your poem reminds me of a car that's been 'pimped out' by Pimp My Ride, except instead of massive subwoofers, saltwater aquariums, and 30 inch screens, you have adorned a flimsy chassis with archaic, purple-drenched and out-of-place words such as ichor, choler, quiver, fervid, etc.
I'm not saying these words, or even your poem as a whole, are strictly bad, just that you use far too highfalutin words to express such a seemingly simple idea; though it may have completely flown over my head.

What i'd like to see more of is what happens to our hero after his fury spurs him forward. You've presented his reactions to what I can only assume to be some abstract form of hardship, strife, a series of persistent but surmountable obstacles. Flight or flight comes to mind. Anyway, I'm just spitballing here, but all this being said, I still think your poem has the seeds of potential; just tone it down on the Victorian style make-up.

>>6821601
SAVAGE OOOOOOOOOO

A fist shook down I-45 cradles
a baby later that night, with rum!
But the excited nerves: swerve!
And a time-machine is taken
to score another load of barbs:
reds, blues, two by two, the self
medicates with wrist flicks, restless,
out the car window, down on 45,
before rockin'-a-bye baby
on rum and soda pop

I’ll pretend: to count, to love,
to hate, to abandon cliches, lies,
to be a humane human writing
a poetic poem, printed cursive, &
to pretend–the pretense here
being my insincere tone yet
wholly honest face beneath the veil…
Ignore the continuity, defy my declarations,
embrace self-proclaimed liars, for
their transparency is the only truth:
comedy: the unexpected curvature
of convoluted lips and slicing tongues;
can silver really kill werewolves?
The hydrolyzed quest is posed,
presupposed, on the wet nose,
there, it’s prose, there it goes, knows
(on and on and on, in infinite throes)
inevitably, veritably, invariably: no on no.

Beans, beans,
the musical fruit,
the more you eat,
the more you shoot
down entire classrooms full of children.

Daddy needs new shoes for his horseracing accountant to the tell the time. Broccoli stonemasons keep their time by clocking toops into the skull crater. Braiin matter drips into his saucepan via his third nostril. Mildew continues to collect. Extravagant forces are knocking on his salt cellar. Clown man no time for the daffodil dance its there. Trapdoor mystic darts out the cellar, leaving behind a cloud of delirium inducing powder. The Chinese roads can be awful buggy this time of year, it's best to wear long pants despite the heat. No more bridges. The interplanetary rape tower mustn't be torn down yet. My lungs filled with piss as I danced the things life away. A rodent gently nibbles the head of my cock as I retreat back into the ground.

>>6821601
Ah, that was an excerpt from something I'm working on, so that's why it came off as abstract. I reworked a few lines according to your critique, but I find that I have a different definition of "flowery" than most, so this may still sound Victorian to you.
Anyway, here's the full poem thus far:

Thrashed around by waves of wind, and
Beaten bloodless by the tempest,
'merges he out from his drenched tent,
Desp'rately he grabs for his gun,
Throws he on his leather trenchcoat,
Swadd'ling Lillith 'neath its worn tails,
She the mute child of the Rockies,
Clings she to his worn denim pants,
Gripping with shock and alertness.
Rushes he into his steel steed,
Fleeing from the damaged tent,
Bangs the door closed, tosses Lillith,
Throws the child against the next seat,
Grits his teeth and loads his shotgun,
Drives his foot into the pedal.

Roars the engine of the black beast,
Revs the heart of the behemoth,
Its two eyes glowing viciously,
Beaming through the ceaseless droplets,
The steel monster launches forward,
Treading through the mud and soil,
Finds its way to firmer pathways,
And surfaces from the forest,
Riding to the broken pavement,
Scrambling for the roads infinite,
Speeding 'long the endless highways!

As the car runs ever faster,
Whimpers Lillith in the next seat,
Fear conducts her rapid breathing,
For the thunder roars overhead
And the rain batters the steel steed,
Crashing down like slugs of hot lead,
Hailing down like thund'rous gunfire,
Chasing down the speeding demon.

Lightning drops with blinding brilliance,
Intense flashes fill the black air!
Beating glows pulse in his eyeballs,
Danger flickers in his pupils!
Crimson blood courses with vigor,
Charged by anger in his dark heart!
On his face his temples pulsate,
Air blows in and out his nostrils!
Ev'ry movement, ev'ry action's
Driven by his raging heartbeat,
Spurred on forward by his fury!

As the beast rides ever further,
Appear up on the horizon
Dreadful figures sharp and shady,
Crowns of shadow rising skyward,
Piercing through the stormy cover.
There he saw't: the Demon City!
Many legends mention this place,
How its people stalk the streets, and
How they feud, and how they battle,
Spilling blood for every reason;
At times for food, at times for fun!
Th' demons kill for any reason,
Slaught'ring while the sun is low, and
Murd'ring while the night is still young.

>>6821945

Seeing the whole piece, I must say the stanza you previously posted, and the rest of the poem, work quite nicely. Solid read, man, really. Keep it up

Finally decided to try and start a fantasy novel. Thoughts? First few paragraphs.

“This is an important day in the history of our peoples. Today, Clan Sinti joins with us to mark an end to their struggle and their Journey, much like our own ended on these banks during the Final Rest. Now, finally, another branch has been restored to the tree and we are stronger for it!”

Malla watched with her usual aplomb as her father went through all the usual motions and pontifications of Journey’s End. She understood, of course, how important it all was for the arriving clan, though she had seen it more times than she could remember. There were times that Malla had even taken part in it herself when the first few arrivals had shown up in Romanichal and helping hands were spread thin. With two older sisters and a city of thousands, there were more than enough people to play parts a sixteen year old princess had grown tired of.

There was one part she never got tired of. The thick crowd looked expectantly at the chief’s wagon of Clan Sinti. It had been pulled into fair area when Journey’s End began and now her father leapt off the stage and into the crowd. Patrin was a big man steadily getting bigger, a point often pointed out by his children whenever they felt like poking fun at the old bear, but he elbowed his way through the crowd like a man half his age. King though he was, it could never be said that Patrin I wasn’t beloved of his people.

From her little ledge above the parade ground, Malla got an excellent view of half of Clan Sinti lifting up their chief’s wagon to get one of the wheels off. Hardt, the chief, personally twisted off the hub. By now Sinti was clapping and singing one of their traditional songs, some dancing, as both Hardt and Patrin carried the massive wheel over to Romanichal’s new stone gate. Dozens of similar wheels, each with their own unique flare, decorated it already. Patrin unslung his massive hammer to the good cheer of his new subjects and Hardt produced the iron stake that he’d been given before everything had started.

Malla couldn’t help but smile as another Traveller wheel was added to the wall by her father’s enthusiastic wallops. That was the capstone of Journey’s End. Now all of Sinti’s traditional wagons, some probably built before her father had even been born, would now be lovingly torn to pieces to be the new walls, floors, and roofs of another clutch of houses rising by the river.

“So, Catch-22, do you like it?”

The man shrugged, making no effort to impart anything in particular.

“I sure do. The Nately’s whore reminds me of my mom.”

The man smiled a little now and turned to Tyson, keeping his place among the pages with his thumb. “So your father is Nately, then?”

“No, my father is the Chaplain. He’s crazy enough to be religious or religious enough to be crazy, but I can’t tell which. Who are you?”

“I’m Adam.”

“No, in the book, which character are you?”

Adam clearly had not considered this. He wondered if anyone in their right mind would. “Um, well…” He looked up at the sun, squinting and thinking.

“That’s okay, you can answer me later.”

“Uh, sure.”

The interviewer, who was indeed the CEO, Parkam, furrowed his brow and looked for a way out of the corner he had very suddenly found himself backed into. He was going to give this Jackson kid the job, or he had intended to, until he started asking intelligent questions. This was not Parkam’s idea of an ideal employee. If an ideal employee sat before him, his closing remarks of mere courtesy (“Well, everything seems to be in order Mr. Jackson. We’ll give you a call soon. Any questions?”) would have been met with a short “no, sir.” Instead, it was met with a question. Next he would be asking where Lewis was. He paused and gathered himself a moment more, and began. “You see, it’s very complicated, I’m not sure that you would underst-’’. The young man cut him off.

“Yes, I see.”

Who did this kid think he was? Parkam hated with a visceral passion to hire anyone with the brains God gave a frog. As he reclined his seat and looked Tyson in the eyes, he realized that he wasn’t entirely sure why, but he thought that he shouldn’t let this kid get away and work anywhere else. Parkam was a strict man of strict principle and by what he believed was the ripe old age of 52, he had seen enough to know that hires like this one were either excellent ones regrettable ones. There was never anything in between. The only bright person that he ever knew in his business that had fit in was in fact himself. He summoned a look of skepticism to his face and drew a breath. “You see? I didn’t explain anything to you.”

>>6822842
I like that quite a bit. The psychology is readily understandable and there's some subtlety and unconscious pathos to the Parlance character. I would love to see more. What is the piece a part of?

>>6823936
*Parkam this benighted autocorrect.

>>6823936
I don't have any experience writing, it's just part of a story I sat down a few days ago and started to spew out. It's feels bizzare, but I don't even know the full plot line myself yet. I'm just writing freely for a little bit each day in my free time and building on it. I'm happy with it so far, though. Want to see what I have so far? 8ish pages is all.

>>6822797
You can delete all of "Adam clearly had not considered this. He wondered if anyone in their right mind would." and not lose anything.

“My cathexis of frogs began when i was around seven years old. I know i was seven because i remember getting a children’s encyclopaedia for my birthday that year.

I had seen frogs before, hiding around plant pots when in the rain and sitting idle around ponds. One hot summer afternoon i found a beautiful specimen of a frog, it had been squashed to death, dried up and brown like some foreign delicacy. I examined it, suspended in my fingers by one of it’s stiffened legs. For some reason the frog interested me and i stuck it in my pocket before anyone saw me with it. I knew i was doing something weird by carrying frog around in my trouser pocket but that gave me a kind of strange thrill. I took it home and hid it in my encyclopaedia as if it were a pressed flower.

I didn't think much about it for a while until i found another one in a similar state. That’s when i decided to start a collection. I knew my dad had collected stamps when he was younger and i didn't think it was much different than that. A few dead amphibians hidden in a pile of books were no threat to anyone.

My parents knew all about my interest and decided to nurture it, hoping it would develop into a healthy love of zoology. They bought me a really beautiful Golden Sedge Reed Frog, it lived in a big terrarium in the corner of my room and i fed it dried insects that i bought online. It was called billy and even my Mother thought it looked pretty. Billy lasted four months before my father walked in on me playing with it. Blood on my teeth with frog limbs and organs strewn across the carpet. I had tried to get interested in the behaviours of frogs, their life cycle and their role in the ecosystem, but they were much more interesting to me dead.

To add to this i had no friends and i didn't do well in school, i could hardly read and i didn't know my times tables. The psychological burden of a raising such a strange son put stress on my parents marriage, my Mother left and for the past six years up to now i have lived with my Father.“

>>6823992
Yes please. And don't worry about the plot, if you were. I for one believe that texture is more important and so writing ordinality is unimportant.

I wrote 3.5k unedited SOC last night.

Looking for a little feedback.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1i9FB_8szrrGrQbLrSP5kgmIgTFrAFZHglOMg2Is34

In Iceland, the resident ambassador to the Huldufólk, in the small town of Borgarfjörður, slept late into the afternoon. Unfortunately she was scheduled to meet a contractor early that morning to assess building plans for a new highway. You see, the people of Iceland have strong superstitions regarding Huldufólk -- a sort of invisible elf-people. Often times people sought the council of psychics to avoid disturbingHuldufólk dwellings, especially contractors and construction workers. No one likes to have their home destroyed, especially theHuldufólk. Taking into account their super natural abilities, Icelanders often took precaution to avoid crossing them in any way. However Einar Eiriksson was impatient, ambitious, and had no time to wait for an eccentric hag to tell him if he could remove a certain rock or not. He did not believe in such ridiculous things. As an atheist, he was merely doing this to appease the local lunatics. It was astonishing how many Icelanders believed in this nonsense, even the most respectable minds in Iceland, although skeptical, refused to deny the existence of Huldufólk. They feared the consequences of such denial much like the average ex-Christian. No one wants to go to church on Sunday, or send time reading the Vulgate, but they will do it (or at least pretend) anyway because absolutely no one wants to spend an eternity in Hell.Impatiently, Einar and his crew continued construction and blasted the rock to pieces, the people needed a new road and they wanted it now. Einar did what any experienced contractor would do, take the quickest, most efficient path available; unfortunately it happened to be right through the middle of a Álfaborg. A large, and for the locals, a well known Huldufólk dwelling.

Wrote this for this >>6823139 thread but I rather liked it and it's very short, so can anyone critique? I feel like my prose is finally getting less clunky. Not a native english speaker, also, if that makes any difference:

All his possessions were in their correct places: clothing in a small bench by the bed, glasses, lighter and pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, wallet and key chain safely under his pillow. He did not, however, recognize the red curtains, the only splash of color in the bare bedroom. The door was located in the most bizarre place of all, right in front of the bed, and bizarre also was the improper disposition of the furniture, which allowed for all sorts of bumping against them should one need to run to the window.

"What on earth has happened?", he murmured to himself as he groped around under the pillow and found his key chain empty and wallet still holding his money but devoid of documents.

Prayer Is Like A Spell

Price for the sword I knew why
Sent horses back to your crying
So goes shield flaming sword
Pray the lord we are going
Over you
I knew what I'm supposed to

Priced to sell and to buy
Bought and sold just for crying
Priced to move and afford
Place to withhold I'am going
Over you
I knew what I'm supposed to

Over you
All for you
Turned off and on
I'm doing it right
Praying good night
I meant no harm
Price for the sword
I ignored it
I meant no harm
Over and over

http://picosong.com/Xndj/

first draft of I know not what, just banged it out in approx. 10 minutes:

Outside dawn was breaking but he had not slept. He had had, had, had had, had had had had a nightmare about a dead person. And when he woke up in the night he could not stop thinking about death. The idea swarmed all over him and through him. It swept like a wind around every corner inside him and touched every part. It wrapped itself around his mind like a boa.

He did not like to think about the come-after. When you close your eyes and that’s it. It was hard to imagine what that was like because to imagine nothing one must not exist. It is a contradiction to think about nothing, just like the philosophers said.

Nothing could be more nothing than that, and that was nothing. Nothing could be more nothing than that nothing. No no that does not work because that points to something. One cannot point at death with regular words. It doesn’t have a shape and it doesn’t stand up like an object. Light doesn’t reflect off its outlines. It is abstract but you cannot even think about what it is because the idea is repulsive and it is the opposite of everything lovely that there is. Everything lovely and kinetic. You can’t draw a picture of it and you can’t write a poem about it that’s true. The only way would be to not exist first and that would be a contradiction.

He tried to find comfort in sayings. People said you are star stuff. And he thought about the saying, dust to dust. Is it so different. You are just taking away the holiness and awe of it but it is still dust to dust. Scientists at CERN discover a new particle. So I am just molecules that came together by chance. And I will spurt around when I am finished. Is that supposed to make me feel better.

When the light peaked through the window his mind ached too badly to get up. The day had just begun and already he was finished. He could not face it.

He heard his phone buzz. It was a text from Laura. It said meet me in Port Jefferson at 8. They would have Italian and then they would sit by the dock. He would run a finger along her arm and look into her eyes that hanged in clearness under the dark. Candid squinty clearness, and open to him. And by the water their breathing would be close and shallow. Close and shallow and fast, then slow and calm. The calm breath would come and the calm waves would come. Like they always had, for his parents and every generation of people that sighed in the dark before him. He smiled.

>>6826120
>in approx. 10 minutes:

Why should we even look at something you haven't given more than 10 minutes thought to? I tried reading it and yes, it looks like a first or rough draft. Congratulations. Maybe edit it for an hour and come back instead of insulting our time with a rough hewn piece of scribble.

>>6826131
Fair point Sargent

What makes a person so disillusioned with the real world that they have to make believe that they are something with even less of a consciousness than a regular human? People used to make believe they were soldiers and firefighters and doctors and veterinarians and police and lawyers and CEOs! Now everyone wants to be nobody and some people want to be fucking cats. Not actually fucking cats (though I’m sure some people want to do that); I suppose then some people want to be fucking people who are actually people who want to be cats. I wish I was a cat, then I wouldn’t be intelligent enough to scorn the idiocy of someone who wishes they were a cat.