Just a small bit of what I've been working on.

[Fathom Zero]

Ahhhh... that chill. It stings. I'm not talking about fear or anything as pretentious as that. I'm talking about the cold. The pure cold that rides the winds. Okay, maybe that was pretentious. Living in Chicago, I've experienced some fairly ferocious wind, just a bit. I can deal with it. But in the cold of winter, the wind chill the wind will cut through you with the deftness of a blade. The cold's anger, while fierce in its own right, is best by its cunningness. Soon, after the sharp has long since set in, a sense of non-feeling slowly falls over you and what you're left with as far as feeling goes is extraordinary fatigue. Soon, the urge to fight is ripped away from you. You are at peace. You belong to the winter. Sinister, if judged only by its invalid sense of justice.

The girl was pretty by all definitions. She had fiery red hair which spoke of a great passion and vivaciousness unparalleled by any other living organism. A rare creature, indeed. She was asleep in her apartment, sitting aloof in a chair. Her legs were thrown up onto one of the arms, the other supporting her head. Sleeping pants are so lovely, no?

She wakes up in the morning to a smell, not a piercing buzzer or some blinding light. It was a burnt smell, one familiar to many. It was coffee. Personally, I can't stand the stuff. It's like toxic mud. I'm a Coke man. Ahem. But that is neither here nor there. To her, it was a sign of things to come; a good sign.

She would shower, get dressed, eat, and start out the door. It was a Sunday. The morning light cast marvelous shadows across cars, trees, and the occasional dog walker. Most people were still holed up - either asleep or at church. Some unlucky individuals had the gall to come into work on such a glorious day, like myself. This girl's destination, however, was the coffee house conveniently located about a block and a half away, walking distance. You may remember I said she had already had coffee, however, this girl is an addict. Obviously.

Were it spring or summer, the little cafe would be obscured. In the late fall, though, it was obscured only by the barest of branches. It was a quaint little number, situated between two very tall buildings, with an apartment sitting on top of it. The walls were of a red brick. There were wrought-iron fences enclosing the patio were several snooty individuals were sipping their foamy beverages under the protection of an umbrella. Lord only knows, the Sun'll kill 'em.

[Sethomas]

You came for critique? Okay.

Honestly, I don't pay attention to modern art prose at all. Same goes for modern poetry. I can't say anything worthwhile about what is said, but:

Verbiage. I understand that yes, my diction is arcane and highly disproportionate to my actual literacy/intelligence. I'm not going to throw out "replace x with y" because that's not a good way to help. I can tell you, however, that this would flow much better if you replaced certain words with smaller, more laconic ones. I see a problem that you take a word that conforms perfectly to the mental image you're seeking but atrociously with the sentence structure that demands it. Particularly, most of the gerunds you use along with anything ending in -ness. The most outstanding instance is "cunningness", because common parlance would allow simple "cunning" in its place. I can imagine "a sense of non-feeling" working in particular instances but this isn't really one of them (as now structured).

I'm not a 6th-grade English teacher so I'm not going to say there's an immutable rule against treating sentence fragments as complete ideas, but the "A rare creature, indeed" really clashes harsh along the general choppiness. I'd change that to "...other living organism--indeed, a rare creature."

This does get back to the idea of having a good mental thesaurus at hand in that there's this false aura about "big words". Laconic wording, as a rule, carries greater eloquence than Teutonic verbal railcars linked together. This is something that I've had to cope with a lot because much of my verbal dexterity doesn't come from heavy reading but analytical language study, hence I'm very tempted take a common word and make it bigger and more bombastic by running it through an easy linguistic algorithm. I've learned that this just doesn't work. "Big words" don't impress people; terse and obscure ones that leave an impact. Many of these seem archaic but aren't--they're just less in vogue because of syllable aficionados like my former (and lingering) self. In general, if a word takes more than maybe 1.3 seconds to pronounce in full then it belongs in a biology journal and not a personal narrative.

If you'd like to find out more about these exciting nooks of the English lexicon, I suggest heavy focus on English literature (NOT world literature in translation) from maybe 1750 to World War I at the very latest. I often spice up my speech with words I learned by reading Londonian dialect late-Middle English. The spellings are often drastically different today but many of them are still employed and instill a cool, timeless feeling.

[Fathom Zero]

I don't set out to replace the words I write. Those are all of them, sans any editing aside from omition or certain sentences. That's my vocabulary, odd as it may sound, and I write as I speak for the most part.

Those ideas would be good if I was really trying to cater to someone, but that's not my goal right now. I'm still working on it.

That said, you're a fruit. Neener neener neener. Thanks for the comments and criticisms, they're valid and have been duly noted.

[Sethomas]

Pssh. Any idiot acquaintance can hand out gold star stickers and refrigerator magnets. A true friend will ruthlessly drown your words in red ink.

[Fathom Zero]

Rightfully so, buddy. I've edited the more offending parts. I've trimmed it a little bit. I've got a couple "big words" occasionally. I'm not willing to give them up to please you.

[liquidstatik]

ART SHIT IS RIGHT

[Misdemonar]

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN LIQUID CARE TO EXPLAIN?

[liquidstatik]

:LOL

[Fathom Zero]

YEAH FAGGOT, TAKE THAT STORY DOWN

[MLE]

I've had this discussion with everyone before. I really don't want writing or prose to be in Art Shit -We have another forum more appropriate.

That being said, I left it here so it would get some attention, and because I respect you more than someone who comes in here and posts in here without knowing better because they're new. From now on, please post these in Comics and Books, but feel free to make a comment in the Art Chat, so you can get some feedback.


THAT being said, I do agree with Seth. If you're not catering to people, then I would keep these more private, but if you're asking for critique and how to connect with people through your writing better, I'd open up your writing style and lexicon to be more versatile.

[Fathom Zero]

Well I guess I'm lost, then.

I've put this on the backburner recently. I'm somewhat lost in my life, feeling unfulfilled, doing the same thing every day. It's nearly done, reflective of comments posted here. I just need some time.

[Fathom Zero]

Actually, you can just move it to Comics & Books if you want. I don't mind.

Now that I think about it, I have to rewrite everything except for a couple paragraphs. It won't have as much punch or mystery to it, otherwise.

Here's a revised version. Ye of weaker minds should find this more pleasant to read.

The cold stings. It hurts me especially. I'm not talking about fear or anything like that. I'm talking about the cold, the temperature, the weather. Living in Chicago, I've experienced some fairly ferocious wind. Quite a bit, actually. I can deal with it. But in the cold of winter, the wind will cut through you with the speed of a blade. The cold's anger, while fierce, is beat only by its cunning. After the sharp has long since set in and faded, a sense of non-feeling slowly falls over you until the only feeling you can recognize is fatigue. Soon, the urge to fight is ripped away from you and you are at peace. You belong to the winter. She's a terrible mistress, I assure you.

[Pub Lover]

Is "the wind chill the wind" an american phrase I'm unfamiliar with? Otherwise it's wrong.

You say 'soon' twice in consecutive sentences.
There are a couple of other things I would fix, but from having read some of your other work, I'll just put them down as your style.

[Pub Lover]

Edit "You say 'soon' twice in consecutive sentences." to "You start two consecutive sentences with 'soon'."

[Fathom Zero]

There are little bugs... you know what? That's what I meant to say, just go on thinking that.

I think I had trouble copying and pasting the passage, actually.

[MLE]

I'll move it so as to not have an example of it still here