November 21, 2003
Feedback
Update on both recent stories.
Turn the Page (nee Dust Jacket), the instructor wrote: “With only a few revisions, this would be an absolutely first-class piece.” She wanted the point, that it was a weekend and therefore without well-trained staff, made more clearly, and a bit more information about John’s duties. Otherwise, she got the dust jacket presaging the events and every other point I tried to make. There were many sentences underlined in red, with words like, “fantastic, great and good.”
Sirens. “This is great.”
She liked the title (thanks to Adam who suggested it), she loved the phantom bear sentence (thanks to Adam for changing it from black bear), and “the sounds of this factory closing.” The big quibble was the last line, “When he says “I’m all alone at last,” doesn’t at last connote relief? As in “free at last.”
I’d have to say, “Yep, what was I thinking?”
From the Vineyard, last summer.
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Peer pressure's got nothin' on authority pressure -- what kids resist instinctually, the conformed adopt instinctually, and vice versa. Other than incidentally, in the phrase "at last", there's nothing about a song bemoaning loneliness ending in being all alone that conveys anything of relief; just tragic inevitability. You WERE thinking, and well -- the challenge was semantically plausible but misplaced. And wrong. Silly you, to be so persuaded. (IMHO..................)
Posted by aghast.Posted by Michael at November 21, 2003 06:01 AM
Peer pressure's got nothin' on authority pressure -- what kids resist instinctually, the conformed adopt instinctually, and vice versa. Other than incidentally, in the phrase "at last", there's nothing about a song bemoaning loneliness ending in being all alone that conveys anything of relief; just tragic inevitability. You WERE thinking, and well -- the challenge was semantically plausible but misplaced. And wrong. Silly you, to be so persuaded. (IMHO..................)
Posted by: aghastat November 21, 2003 08:24 AM