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 Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:09 pm
This is a place where I can post my "real life" stories. Please feel free to read and critique!
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:13 pm
Seven Days
Seven days. One full week lost to this nightmare. My life has been taken away from me and I have nowhere to go. Several times I've attempted escape, but the place is locked down tight.
I am never alone here. Even when no one is around I can feel eyes watching me. I imagine cameras hidden in the walls. I lie awake at night listening as patients scream and rage.
I am haunted constantly by strange voices speaking to me. They tell me I am worthless. They tell me I am better off dead, and I believe them. I have a name, but I have forgotten it. I dream of home, but doubt I shall ever escape this place. It has been seven days. It feels like millennia.
I feel myself drowning in the oozing black pits of despair. I see it as a black goo that fills my head, covering and oppressing thought and emotion. To think through this goo is near impossible, and slow.
My eyes are like projector screens, delusions playing across them as the days pass. I dream of robots, torture, war and world domination. I hide in my own head where these dreams reign supreme. In seven days, I have lived many lives and done many wrongs. My emotions are a seething storm of guilt, raging over an ocean of the deep, deep sadness known as depression.
Seven days. When does it end?
(What do you think? I posted this in another guild forum a while ago, but I'm posting this here as well.)
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:20 pm
Dancing Waves
The waves danced a steady beat upon the sands. The sky above was a tempest of darkness and light. The winds toyed with the water as it fell from the heavens and shifted the sands below. Both water and sand was sharp to the skin as they danced together on the playful gusts. The waters chilled me to the bone and the sand stung my skin. I stood and stared up at the heavens in the height of all its fury. I pondered the terrible beauty of the merciless clouds above. As I stood there for the third day in a row, I hoped that those winds so playful, so terrible, would return to me that little boat those dancing waves stole from me not two days ago and in it the man who held my heart. As tears ran down my cheeks that were not the heavens’, I held fast to that hope that someday he would be returned to me.
(How do you like this? I started with the image of the storm and built it from there, without knowing where I'd end up. Again, this may also be found in The Writing Corner guild forum.)
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:31 pm
Intruder
I stayed up late that night, stuck into a good book. Suddenly I heard a noise. It was the scraping sound of a window opening. I climbed out of bed, slipping my feet into my slippers. Then I heard a floorboard creek. The hair on the back of my arms stood on end. Slowly, carefully, I crept into the bathroom. Fumbling blindly in the drawers, I found the hairdryer.
I crept out into the hallway, nervously heading towards the place I thought the sounds were coming from. Suddenly I was acutely aware of my senses. I could feel the weave of the soft woollen slippers on my feet. I could smell the roses on my dining table. I could taste the air, cool and fresh, and feel the soft caress of a draft on my face. I could hear my own ragged breathing. I could see by the faint moonlight from a window. Shadows stretched long. My tread was soft and silent on the carpeted floor.
Suddenly I saw a shadow move through a doorway. I sped up. Then I hesitated by the doorway. What am I doing? I thought. It was probably a robber. Maybe even a would be rapist. I should call the police. That’s what I should do. But the phone was in the living room – with the intruder. My only chance was to scare them.
I came around the corner, brandishing my hair dryer before me as though it were a gun and shouting “Come out with your hands up!” The shadow turned around, and I could see its face in the moonlight. “Michelle?”
(What do you think? This was an English assignment for school where we had to write a story with an atmosphere of tension and menace.)
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Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:56 pm
Your writing is, may I say, quite lovely and your grammar is extremely precise. You use a lot of description, but I feel like you yourself don't believe what you are writing. You have the words and the ability to express them (and express them well, you can) but you lack the emotion that really nails the reader. For Intruder I couldn't help but smile the entire time. I know you meant for suspense or tension, it's evident in your section about heightened senses, but you mentioned a blow dryer. A blow dryer. That's like the blonde in the first five minutes of any horror movie grabbing a cucumber, as opposed to the kitchen knife, before yelling out, "Is anyone there?" It just made me giggle.
Dancing Waves was slightly better. It didn't have me smiling the entire time. I was confused. You use words like "danced" and "playful" when describing that this broad just lost her man. Were you going for contrast? "My manly man is gone, woe is me, and yet this cruel world still turns". If that was the case, I feel like you should mention how the sun, symbolic and literal bringer of warmth and love, was enticing or setting (setting, of course, symbolic for death). Maybe throw in some playing children. Hell, even a couple of singing whales would have been a nice touch. I feel like you only scratched the surface of what this chick is feeling. One more paragraph could tell us so much about her. Or even just a few more sentences. She has so much to say and only a paragraph of thought.
Seven Days I think was your most emotional piece. I kind of felt where this kid was. Again I think you only scratched the surface. Having a borderline personality disorder (if you don't know what it is, look it up. This might help you write on depression) I know better than most what being in a numbing depression feels like. You got the pits of despair and sadness, yes, and the camera things (a nice touch, by the way) but there's so much to it, as I'm sure you've felt at least once. Depression is never an easy subject to approach or write on, but I feel like you did it some justice. Consider making your vignettes slightly longer. A few more words can add a lot more meaning.
Then again, I'm just some random reading editor. Take my words for what you will and keep writing. The more you write, the more you feel. The more you feel, the better you write. The better you write, the more reviews. The more reviews, the more you're inspired. The more you're inspired, the more you write. Welcome to publishing's vicious circle. It's a b***h, I know.
--Sylvie
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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 6:06 pm
Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it.
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