The Portrait of Zool

I did my 6 years in the USAF. Congratulations! Best of luck too. Boot camp will be tough but you can make it, just keep your mind on what you are doing and don't think of how much LONGER you have. I'm glad I went into the military. I'm glad I got out, but I'm also glad I went in. (PS. Hope you chose a good career field! )

Here at the Pen we are pretty good about giving feedback. Sometimes though, I think we all could use something a little more substantial. Perhaps we have an idea for a story or poem, but we don't really know how to get started, or we have a vision in our heads, but it just won't come out comprehensibly - or perhaps we are just terrible at getting ourselves to finish up. So what I'd like to know is who here at the pen thinks they could benefit from having a little more help. Of course we are a busy bunch in RL, which would naturally limit the potential help a potential helper could give, so I wouldn't call it all out 'mentoring', but I'm sure if there were enough interested members that some of our more experienced contributors could give them a hand on a particular problem. Feel free to add any comments or suggestions.

I wanted to get to this and Final Death this weekend, but a sudden change in plans has me putting a sliding door in place of my rear window, so I prolly won't be on at all. I'll check it out as soon as I can.

a very 'spirited' story there Master P... I can't wait to see it. :woot:

Oh. That's cool.

Hmm... I'm not sure, but I think the less latitude, the more fair the contest, because there is a big difference between 'spirit' and 'spirits'. Of course, you could write about the spirit of the spirits...

Thanks Rune, for taking the initiative. As a suggestion, perhaps the 'prize' will include that the winner gets to choose the next theme?

Let's do it!

Yeah Happy B-day dude!

some quickies... A tearing buzz blossoms through the foggy darkness. Fumbling, I search for the offending clock and finally shut it off. I lay there, my arm stretched out onto the nightstand, my face buried in the pillow, my mind dipping a toe into the morning and gingerly cringing from the coldness, for several minutes. I froze with a dawning start. All the struggle, all the pain, all the years of hoping and dreaming drained from my mind just like the blood from my face. My left eye gave a single twitch as I looked in the mirror and wondered just who in the hell was the man staring back at me.

Time End's eyes are drawn above the fireplace to a huge full sized standing portrait of a man, with the tallest hairdo he'd ever seen and a rubber chicken laying neatly over one arm. The figure was speaking to him... Well Time Ends, this topic had kind of died because we really don't engage in competitive dialog here. I must say, though, that I too used to feel as you, violated when people disagreed with me. I felt as though if there was a chance they were right, then I was in danger of being wrong. My feeling of violation was my egoistic response to a perceived emotional threat. After some time though, and a lot of experimental participation, I found that I was really making a mountain out of a molehill. People's ideas - all people - are as individual as their faces. Certainly, you don't feel violated just because someone has a different face than you, yet that is exactly what we do when someone disagrees with us - we are rejecting their ideas with emotional prejudice, the prejudice being that we feel different ideas threaten us. Their telling us our ideas are wrong is no excuse for us to feel threatened. In that situation, you only have a double mirror amplifying the rejection. The fact is, if someone is rejecting you, that is about them, not you. And if they insult you, that is about them too, only reflecting their emotional state. Of course, the opposite is also true. If they praise us, that is really about them too. Wether or not you should choose to accept criticism, wether positive or negative, should be a matter of discernment, not need and emotion. Here at the Pen we know that because we explore it everyday, in the characters we write about and all the literary situations we are constantly exploring. So called 'facts' are actually a dynamic and tenuous agreement between observers with which we try to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but the truth of it is that all the world's a stage, and all the people merely players. With that the figure in the painting fell silent, as did all the room - dead silent. The silence was suddenly broken when the rubber chicken, who had been swelling bigger and bigger as the monolog wore on until he was the size of a basketball, flatulently deflated in a long, blasting squeak.

*Thunk* ;p

Wow! Great use of words. The meter is not tight, but workable. It does flow. I love the contrasts. Symphony to silence. Forever to too short. The implied contrasts are even better, relying on the readers experience to build the complete image. The dragonfly's wing to bright crystal. The comfort of chocolate transformed through clinical description. The death of the rose. VERY good work!

I'm the limerick, mired in muck. I refuse to be bored or get stuck. I like to offend, But not, in the end, As much as to thwart expectations. What Poetry Form Are You?

That was cool!

Zool stands with Peredhil.

An oil portrait speaks from the wall: "Well hello there! All newcomers are welcome, of course. Feel free to look around, we have many exciting things to participate in, should one wish." "If you like what you see, there are even grander role play and community possibilities for members. You become a member by writing up a short piece as application and posting it in the recruiter's office, to be scrutinized by our Elder of Innitiates, Wyvern." "Hope you enjoy your stay!"

Congratulations All! Have fun with the quill-quests.

I rant - but only with close friends. Sorry.

Ah, I see. Yeah, that was good logic, though I don't see how he could 'be ready for them' any more than he could feel pain. But no, I hadn't thought it through that far. Perhaps you should leave it the way it is. Anyway, can't wait to see more!

I just got 3 in a row from 'report this to a moderator' from AshtonBlades. I took care of it, btw.

I love this piece - classic Ozymandias! As always, your writing is accomplished with a deftness and humor which is hard to put down. Keep it up big guy! I love the style and personality of your narration. It seems almost as if an actual person is narrating. This might seem a strange thing to say, of course there's a person narrating, it's just that your narrator conveys far more personality and opinion than a 'regular' narrator. I'd like to talk about that. Tonight, he was ready for them. He almost seemed to rock back and forth slowly in anticipation in his silent vigil. Imagine surprise, disgust, and sudden, sharp pain as a ferocious right hook to the jaw sent him reeling backwards. Now, please realize I am getting very picky here, trying to give advice on flaws which may or may not exist, probably very much just the taste of the reader, which would be me, in this case. That being so, you may or may not want to change anything. Really I am just pointing this out so that you are aware of it - you may, in fact, choose to revel in it! In either case, you asked for it. So, back to the example, my point refers to the use of the word "imagine'. While this is very much in the direction of the famous Ozy style, which is a meta-dialog between the narrator and the reader, I found this blatant direction to the reader distracting. The narrator isn't just describing the scene, he outright tells you to Imagine the scene! As a reader, it is the sudden reminder that I am reading that could hang me up, jolting me, as it were, out of the story. As I said, this may not be a flaw. The risks and benefits, however, should be made plain. This technique works quite well for some people. Tom Robbins worked wonders by actually putting the narrator in the story as a real person in the last third of his first book; Another Roadside Attraction (A marvelous read, BTW). Terry Pratchett's exuberant narration style is also very embellishing. The thing to be careful of, however, is the narrator's voice imposing on the scene, as I think it may here, or even worse appearing mannerismed or judgemental. The scene is of a quiet dark shop. There are two lurkers in the dark. The trap is sprung, a hero accosted - and a fourth person steps in from the darkness telling you to imagine blah blah. Sorry guy, but I just found it a bit distracting. It seemed to slow the action down in my confusion - again though, that's prolly just me. Mannerisms are odd inflections of voice or word choice. F'rinstance, "unawares", used in the first line. Used as a consistent style, you may get away with this, through simply the inertia of maintaining a certain level of word oddity. However, I find it far more likely that this is just a typo. So anyway, used as you usually do, your 'personal' narration style is a gem, but I think you may want to think more specifically how you use it to complement a scene, and be careful of impinging in the readers imaginings. Write as you usually do, but when you go back and read over it, some things to ask yourself is if the narration complements the scene and allows the reader's imagination to do most of the work. Otherwise, good all around intro to the characters, though I would like to know more specifically what they look like eventually. The quirkyness of the characters and the setting has me interested - I want to read more!

Pleeeeeeaaassse?!?!?