The Review Club Forum Malenkov's discussion

Malenkov,

Your quite welcome. The only thing with that theme is that you want to make sure it's more shades of gray. Consider a Harry Chapin song called Mr. Tanner, it's about a person who runs a laundry, who enjoys singing. His friends push him into going to New York to persue music. When the critics hear him, they trounce him. And he goes back to Ohio and never sings again.

The refrain has always stuck with me, "Music was his life, it was not his livelihood. It made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. He sang from his heart. He sang from his soul. He could not tell you why he sang, it just made him whole."

Basically, I get the feeling that David's life following his dream is all peaches, but it's not going to be. Eh... but that's just me. If that makes any sense let me know :)

Cameron

Review up on your short story. If you have any questions please feel free to let me know.

 

Rob

Reviewed your story and some of what I noted may be personal taste issues.   If you feel so, please feel free to ignore.   If you want to discuss any on my review, please feel free to message me or note it  here and I will respond.

Nick.   

Hi Antony

 

thanks for the review of the Visit, both for the praise and those laser sharp points: especially the comment about the use of past tense and third person, which I think is the natural perspective for the story. Originally I wrote in in third and pure first but I wanted to experiment and put the reader there somewhat. Third and past would put aon it, after the fact, and one day I will have to rewrite this and especially put balance on the mothers perspective.

 

Thanks again for the comments.

 

Malenkov

Thanks you for your kind review and words of encouragement. I want to write and it is never far from my mind but my ocean of words have dried up. It is like I got slapped with the illiterate stick.  That and CC will tell you, I 'll start plenty of stories but never finish. I'm like 20 to 0 in starts and finishes. Anyways I'm sure you already know you've found a great bunch of people. I still owe some reviews, so I'm going to be popping in and out and paying some people back.

BTW Julie Rocks! Cameron's a shyster... CC ate Gabe's socks... And Gabe spiked the Jamba juice. 

"Thanks you for your kind review and words of encouragement. I want to write and it is never far from my mind but my ocean of words have dried up."

 

It was a pleasure you are a talented writer, as are the others in this forum, and I learn just as much from the excericise. So far as the flow is concerned I confess to having enourmous difficulties myself in completing -  the Kirby Guest House took two months and almost thirty drafts and I am never satitisfied and often desperate.

Try to lower your standards and complete pieces, there are no failures in writing, only steps to learning. Also listen to the cause of the dry up, theres is often good sense in it - try a different direction in your writing, try excercies or imiatation or free wriring or anything if it starts the flow, but above all get the words down. If the dry up is on the novel consider perhaps a different approach - more planning first if you write by plunging in, or vice versa. But in any case, keep at it and do it whether the words flow or not. It's a phase and will pass, there is also a logic to it, its part of the writing process. So trust it.

Hope that helps.