So, I know this thread is kind of all over the map with my ramblings and story-bits (that's why it's random, after all), but if anyone reading has thoughts or feedback for any of my literary nonsense, I'm always glad to hear it.
Everything you write is a nice lil' story i can count on enjoying during my leisure time, but I do have one question-- If a female cat-woman started walking up to you, what would you do? Most of your stories involve "female felines" >.>
-Cassie doesn't count, she's an actual cat. -Zee is from my novel, of which I've shared a few bits now. -Farah (and the whole Ratha thing) is a one-off, for some ideas I wanted to try out. It's also inspired by stories from a few other authors. That being said, yeah, I do have a certain weakness for kitteh women. If I saw one in real life, however? Reaction would probably be shock and disbelief, and I'd let her be. Our country still has all kinds of issues over bloody skin color, I suspect a gal of an alternative species would have plenty of problems without strangers gawking and making life generally awkward. (Also, I have a girlfriend already.) Anyway, fair question but I'd rather not get into my personal weirdness here too much. I have another thread for that sort of thing.
Okay, here are just some little bits of feedback. I don't know if any will be useful to you, but here goes... This line was very, very good. Even though it doesn't have a lot in it, it instantly creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. Say, a man is standing in a dark, dingy room, reading a piece of paper he's picked up off a desk, when his whole body suddenly tenses. His head whips around, hand going to his pocket to extract a weapon... but by the time he gets it out, of course, his body is already falling. I like little things like that, lines that just drip with hidden meaning and foreshadowing. They're very good closers, in my opinion, things to end sections or chapters, but if you use them too often in the same format, I imagine they get a bit dry. Drama is good, but ending every chapter with the same drama is not. That technique there, that sort of literary pattern, is also quite nice. Makes the words really hit home. Again, though I'd use it in moderation. That whole piece of the book was excellent, and I look forward to reading the full novel. The only part I was unsure of is the word "elicited." It's probably nothing (definitely take this with a grain of salt!), but the word just sat a bit weirdly with me, as though it didn't quite fit in with the rest of the passage. Perhaps because it's mostly dialogue, the majority of the language seems to be in relatively simple terms, and it seems to carry a light, entertaining tone (thanks to David's slight confusion and Gray's snarky comments). All in all, "elicited" just seems out of place to me, but I could most definitely be wrong.
I'd intended that short to be something more lighthearted and amusing, but it morphed into an abridged variant of the Charwich-Koniinge Letters about halfway through. I'm not really sure why. The writing is mine of course, but I can hardly claim credit for the idea. Inspired by the novel "Only Forward" by Michael Marshall Smith (what an incredibly generic name, eh?) It's not exactly an uplifting tale to begin with, the protagonist is kind of a future-version 40's-era gumshoe, but the final act gets really bleak and depressing. It'd make for one hell of a film though. I look on it as being one of those "commonly understood" literary devices, like how people always seem to know what "being put through a taffy-puller" means, even if they've never seen a taffy puller, or eaten taffy. I could see something less verbose being used there though, like "struck" for instance. I'm always getting into situations with my writing where I accidentally repeat myself, verbatim, on certain things, so I've tried to train myself to use alternate words / phrases wherever I can. Thanks for the response Hash
Does she have a cat? But that thread's old ;.; Well, we get to see inside your head somewhat with your storytelling, anyway =P
More "Marvin & Jim" antics tonight. I'm worried they may be paying regular visits... The crater had been smoldering for nearly an hour now. Everything smelled of gasoline and charred meat. Jim stood at the rim of the blast site, his face blackened from soot and smoke. "Tell me," his brother-in-law demanded, bringing a pair of shovels up from the shed, "how much gas did you use in that thing?" "Full tank," Jim answered in a daze. He took the offered shovel without complaint. "You didn't think to test it first?" Marvin sighed heavily and began to scoop dirt into the scorched pit. Numbly, Jim followed suit. "I was sure it would work. I found the plans online. They had video and everything!" he insisted. "...This is because Riley still isn't talking to you, isn't it?" Marvin's sister had split with Jim two weeks ago, having finally had enough of his madcap ravings and sordid ideas. They were not officially divorced yet, but Marvin assumed it was only a matter of time at this point. It was a wonder they'd managed this long. Jim simply nodded, shoveling in silence. Gradually, the smell and the smoke began to subside. "Just answer me this. Where did you even get one?" "The Kenzie twins down the road had a couple they hadn't gotten rid of yet." Marvin rolled his eyes. His in-law was foolish at times, but when he set his mind to something... "And you really thought this would convince her?" "Well, she did say 'when pigs fly.'"
Debating what to write next. Any ideas? Also, any interest if I were to transfer some of these to in-game books for TTB? Been a while since I wrote anything myself for the bookstore. (I think the last was the Shadowspire prologue)
Wow Kephras.. I knew I enjoyed reading just about anything you post but for some wild and strange reason I've never seen this before. I'm on a break at work right now (well, kinda late getting back to work now.. thank to you. ) I will certainly be reading more as time permits. Oh, and btw.. I was enjoying the cat person in the earlier part of this post. I'll be looking to see if that story continues. I'm with HashHog about the pickle poem. It's fantastic. I'm so glad I found this for myself.
"How do you live with yourself?" It's a question I ask myself often. Despite waking every day with breath still in my lungs and a pulse in my wrists, I've never found an answer. Or perhaps I've always known that answer and I can't bring myself to use it. The word is "forgiveness," and while it's easy to say the word, feeling it - believing it - is another matter entirely. To forgive yourself of your sins and misdeeds, therein lies the challenge. I'm no murderer. I haven't taken a life, or even stolen more than a pencil. I don't have blood on my hands, but they feel stained anyway. I may not have killed, but I have wounded. And worse, I hurt someone I loved. I strive to be decent, upright, respectable. I speak honestly from the heart, and yield my shoulder to those who need it. I am the White Knight who defends virtue and raises his shield for those who lack one. But no one is perfect. There come moments when I doff my helm, and see the beast that wears it. When my armor crumbles and all that remains is the monster inside. She forgave me, but I can't forgive myself. The pain I caused still haunts me, reminds me that for all my light, there's a darkness at its center. I deny this beast. I give it nothing to feed upon, no act that will bring it forth. My armor is as much to protect me from without as it is to encase and contain that within. Were that I but an empty shell, it would be better than to live as my own prison. But perhaps that is my answer, and my penance. I know what I am inside, even if the world does not. I find atonement as my own warden. The darkness overtook me once, and now that I have seen it manifest, it is my duty to ensure such a thing never again occurs. I am the jailer and the inmate in one, and my forgiveness - if I can ever be worthy of it - will come only when the sentence is served. At the end of my days, when this prison of the self collapses and can breath no longer, perhaps then the beast will finally be tamed, broken, undone. It will not change who I am, or what I did. But just perhaps, I will finally be at peace with it.
Dawn didn't break, this morning. It shattered. The world turned on its side, and bloody lances of illumination fell on the hills, sundering them. There's an old rhyme about red skies at dawn, but we had no warning, no time to take warning. When the sun rose, it was angry, and everything on our side of the horizon bore its wrath. You think I'm speaking in metaphor? That some calamity we can't name fell on us from the heavens and started tearing up our world? No, my friend, this is literal. Every morning is like this. Our world is being continually ripped apart as it turns, and no matter where you live, dawn is the worst of it. That's when the absolute cold of night meets the shock-heating of solar exposure and the surface goes from freezing to vaporizing in seconds. So of course your next question would be, "why do we live in such a hellish place?" This is all we've got left. It used to be a planet - decent one, too. Had water, air, ecosystems, the works. Guess the cosmos didn't like that too much, since they sent another rock on a collision course with ours. But not just any rock. No, friend, there are little ones that melt in the sky before they hit the ground, there are crop-dusters and city-killers, crater-makers and harbingers-of-the-apocalypse that'll wipe your world clean so what's left can start over fresh. And we'd seen them all, over the millenia. But this rock, oh this one was the great-grand-daddy of them all. This was a planet-buster, may as well have been a planet all to itself. Twice our mass, less than a quarter our size. It was an interstellar musket-ball of a rock, and when it hit dead-center after getting a nice slingshot off the other side of our sun? Most of us are just counting our blessings there was enough of our mudball left to make a comet from. I'll bet even your planet blinked when that thing hit us. Winced, more like. So we live on a comet now, half a hundred left out of a few trillion. Preserving the species, amirite? Somehow our little bunker managed to hold together when the world itself got blown to shreds, riding what's left of the mountain it was buried in through space. But hell, you already know all this don't you? You can see it in your telescope when you look up at night, hurtling down out of the black. We've had a good run, even all these centuries after The End, but it was bound to catch up with us eventually. Maybe the rock that hit us was in our shoes now, carrying the last remnants of some other poor sucker's civilization with it. Our turn to pay it forward, I guess. But hey, for whatever little it's worth? We're really sorry to bump into you like this.
Anna sat in the dark, twiddling her thumbs idly. She recalled her mother saying "Idle hands are the devil's playground," but she'd never once seen them do anything unspeakable. And she'd collected a great many over these last few months. Big, callused ones from the butcher down the block, the thin bony ones from Mr. Pritchard in the apartment above hers, even the pudgy mitts of Mrs. Dougherty, who'd only ever seemed to use them to move food from her plate to her mouth. She had a great many hands now, and all of them did absolutely nothing. They were simply... idle. Anna set down the thumbs and looked at the clock. Doctor Swanson would be along soon for his weekly visit. Perhaps his would do something more interesting. It was worth a try, at least. She was so very bored these days...
nice. only thing i find inconsistent is that it seems like she's collecting only thumbs when her mother was talking about the entire hand.
My life was normal and dull You pulled me out of that world Opened my eyes to the skies up above Maybe not your intention Giving me this ascension But I'm here, now it's clear what you've done So I rise and I fight As it all comes down tonight One will fall, lose it all, but it's not your call This is the path you started us on Face to face, head to head This isn't how I end, I'll ascend And leave you nothing but dead You showed me how to stand strong How to weather the storm What you taught me will now be put to the test Your challenge, accepted Is it what you expected? Won't give in, let you win, not with life still in this chest So I rise and I fight As it all comes down tonight One will fall, lose it all, but it's not your call This is the path you started us on Face to face, head to head This isn't how I end, I'll ascend And leave you nothing but dead You brought out this side of me I know now what I can be I could've let you leave, but you deceived Destroyed all that I believed And when you're bleeding on the floor You'll know for sure You have got what you deserved So I rise and I fight As it all comes down tonight One will fall, lose it all, but it's not your call This is the path you started us on Face to face, head to head This isn't how I end, I'll ascend In time my wounds will mend I'll walk away, be okay, live to fight another day You'll have nothing left but the grave And you've only got yourself to blame
"Ugh, what is that stench?" "I could not guess. I have lost my abilities of olfactory perception." "... Again in English?" "I can't smell a damn thing." "That's better. Why can't you just talk like a human being for a change, Winslow?" "I am a human being, and this is how I talk. Therefore, your assertion is flawed." "'My assertion is flawed'? Really? See this is exactly the kind of shit I mean." "Then I suspect you have discovered the source of your stench."
"Who is that?" "Oh that's just Chemo-Zombie." "Chema-what now?" "Chemo. Zombie. A mad scientist tried an experimental drug on him and sorta... reanimated his corpse. He lives with us now. If you can call it that. Mostly he just shambles around bumping into things, and watches daytime television." "Oh. So, he's like my grandmother." "Exactly! But without the overwhelming aroma of baby powder."
