Holy tequilla!

You're right, Cheese - that was good.

I started my mess. I'll give a couple days if someone wants to enact the first wave. Else, I'll write the next bit next week.

Well, I _was_ going to have pizza for dinner tonight. Not no more. Surprised dog and TBH haven't found this one yet.

Where to start? Hmm.

It's disturbing. Painful. Gruesome. Especially the part about her eye being extracted and sliced. Reminded me of Un Chien Andaleu, and I always had to turn my head when that part was shown. Eye damage makes me squeamish.

As well-detailed and thorough as the agony was described, I would've appreciated some idea of the motivation. Her husband did this to her? Was there method to his madness? Had something snapped in him, or had she never noticed his sadistic tendencies toward inhumanity? He was a cop (service revolver); did he see something he couldn't unsee and it haunted him until he went overboard? If so, why take it out on the missus? Especially with such a young child?

One of the most disturbing pieces I ever read was about a torture session where a husband abused his wife with an electric sander. And yet I read it start to finish. I'm not sure what it was about or why I read it. While the writing was compelling enough to hold my attention, I felt like it could've been so much more with reasoning. Largely the same case here.

Remind me not to play any Tiny Tim albums when you're within earshot, lest you feel the need to remove my ears with tinsnips.

All in all, you had a great what, enough where and when, but I missed the who and why. A little depth of character would make this a hundredfold more haunting.

* * * SPOILER: ANYONE READING THESE COMMENTS SHOULD STOP NOW UNLESS YOU’VE READ ALL SEVEN CHAPTERS OF AVARICE. * * *

Dog –

Caught your consecutive posts and decided to print out a hard copy so I’d have something to read on the throne. (I suspect you take great joy being read by someone with his pants around his ankles.) Rather than comment on individual chapters, I’ll do one diatribe over the whole shebang.

Saw Memento a couple years ago on video, so I knew the premise. Enjoyed the performances; my only complaint was the lack of motivation. I wondered if that same bummer would resurface in your story. Pleasantly, it did not.

I’ve always enjoyed the way your characters have dimension. They’re sick and depraved, often a despicable subclass of humanity, but they exhibit depth. These are people I’d never want to meet in real life, but I’d love to sit in a diner booth next to them and listen to them talk. Historically, our dialog is sharp, biting, cruel, and yet real. The emotions you provoke are tangible, be they lust, anger, or outright pity. If I’m ever looking to get inside the mind of a loser, I need look no further than one of your creations. They’re brilliant and I admire them.

Avarice is more of an episode in technique. More style than substance, and I grant it leeway accordingly. The structure’s intrinsic necessity to shield plot-altering thoughts and actions until the proper reveals made it hard to sink my teeth into the experience of Ray, Dennis and Anthony. Yeah, they’re all broken people, but they’re far more caricatured than your “normal” offerings.

Ray is, as you eloquently provided, trailer. Horrific background, dreadful circumstances, but it felt glazed to say she stayed with Dennis because she couldn’t find something better. I didn’t feel any desire – even demented – for Anthony. No real remorse or agony for her actions. No deep-set satisfaction in offing Dennis. No sincere greed. She’s not bright in her birdcage, but her utter lack of cleverness with Dennis the abusive **** provided no connection, no motivation to care about her. She’s a stupid ho who sleeps around? ‘Kay. Even now, rethinking her situation, I’m stuck believing she’d look for another John to tell her what to do with the ticket. She completely lacks street savvy. Or original thought. Hard to have a lead who can’t think well for herself.

Dennis is a fat Michael Madsen, no? He’s thoroughly unlikeable, cruel, heartless, and stupid. Which gave me little to latch onto. I usually hate your evil characters because I know folks like that. No, scratch that. I’ve never met your evil breed. But I usually detect some morsels that I know only too well. Loathe-worthy. Dennis is neither sharp, nor blunt. He’s a stench. I want to be apart from him, but he’s mostly a disgusting bother. Wish he stepped up his game with something beyond brutality.

Then there’s Anthony, the saint until the ending. I enjoyed him more as an enigma. That he concocts his plan-a-la-pussy is smart. But he’s far from smart enough to pull it off. I wanted him to be sly, conniving, wolfish. Even if innocent of any real wrongdoing, I wanted more to grasp than a horndog who’d lie for a piece of ****.

That’s the crux of this. Ray’s a piece of ****, Anthony’s a horndog, and Dennis is a bastard. Whereas Alyssa and her next-door-neighbor were masterpieces. Hell, even your old piece about the lottery ticket had fuller characters than this.

As an unusual aside, there were distinct moments I thought you were writing like a woman. Both in thoughts and dialog. Weird.

I think your concept is solid, but the execution is hard to carry out with flimsy palettes like those.

(Man, between this and my rant about “The Other Sock,” nobody’s going to want me to critique their stuff anymore. Heh.)

A huge fan,

Nash

My first thought was anywhere up. After all, Zombies Can't Climb (http://www.archive.org/details/SweetAwesomeFilmZombiesCantClimb)

Barring that, I'd say a yacht. Although I wonder whether zombies can float.

A horde, eh? Am I solo during this invasion, or can we double up?

Let me know if the doctor prescribes more medication. Or less.

Ah yes, the dreaded age/sex check.


Yep. I have both.

"Shown Up" - This is what no reason and too much time will do.

51,241 words. Ended up writing a non-fiction, bloggish, memoirish, love letter to my wife. Saved myself money Christmas shopping too. Whee.

My intent is to get a chapter or three up in the next week, but mice and men have intents too, and mice like Cheese and Cheeseliker is a man, and this paragraph is a run-on and I'm gone for the day

-- Nash

You rang?