Discussion of "Rainy Days and Mondays (Allow Me to Bunker Down)" by nashvillebecker

This is very well written. I love the feel of it, and look forward to see what happens next! 5 stars

I enjoy alot of your work. This one here is no exception.
I enjoy stories about writers who uses a writer as their main character in a story. With me being a huge fan of Stephen King, I especially enjoyed his takes on them with "Misery and "The Dark Half."
I have no doubt that this will continue to be a great story. The ending is suspenseful, with some many great possibilities.
I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Piffle! This is too good. Rainy days and mondays; Silverstein and Hitchcock; Piffle and dammit; martini's and dorito's; two glasses; two people; too many ways this could go. Piffleful! Masterful! 2.5 + 2.5

I frickein ADORE this...oh my. The ink is running on my heart made of words. I guess I want to say: THIS IS MASTERFUL!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like a 13 year old pansy at a Disney concert.

Well done! Your work is a lot of fun, and the 'inner voice' in the writing process is all too familiar. Loved especially the rhymes popping out here and there, and him trying to talk himself into talking more tough. Great work!

Bleeding foreheads and prerequisite vices? I know you hate gushing, but you leave so little room for anything else. You even used the semi colon correctly.

very well done - I look forward to reading more of your work.

Marvelous prose, and I feel like you give us a great feel for our protagonist - who he is, what his life is like, and what he's trying to accomplish this week. Though I would have liked to see a little more action in this chapter...

Well done!

It’s all so perfect. Grammar and punctuation and wit, oh my! Man, I really encourage you to make a mistake sometime…ya know, just for the hay of it. You may find that it’s just what you…er, your character needs to break out of the kiddie story mold and write a ‘real mans’ book. Ya know, with blood and sex and stuff. Like, maybe the intruder turns out to be the oversexed and under dressed slutty neighbor. Or better yet…how about an Evil preacher! (How awesome would that be!)
Oh, Piffle!
Nash, you are so disgustingly gifted my friend. As Honey said, I know you shun the gushing…but seriously dude, your work never fails to entertain at the highest level. This is no exception. Loved it.

I enjoyed the back and forth in the tone of the story. Someone said it before but to reiterate, the clash in character give a lot to possibility.

The build of suspense was just enough for the tone and, in my opinion, balances perfectly with inner character conflict with external conflict.

Cant wait to see whats next!

Okay, nit-picking here, but I know you're a talented enough writer to take it....(even though I probably don't have the right to dish it)... :)

[Unemployed. Unencumbered. My beloved wife, Martha, took the kids to Gramma’s for the week,]

Change "took" to "has taken"

[.... phones disconnected, two spiral notebooks worth of sketches and half-baked concepts, and precious writing time. ]

omit the comma after concepts

[Bartholomew, our cat, has enough food and water to last a couple days. If it reaches the point where he has to roll in his own filth, we’ll be kindred spirits. This is it.]

I love this part! Maybe add a explanation mark at the end?

[There are no greater joys for a writer than getting lost in a story.]

Maybe switch it to say "there is no greater joy"

[Five books later, I’d given up on Emmett. ]

this little tidbit would have worked better at the end of the last section. Here, it almost seemed like you were switching up tenses.

[Since I hit the big four-oh in April, ]

since I'd hit....

[it’s about time I did something more grown-up.]

I figured it was about time to....

[ I always envision myself a cross between Shel Silverstein and Alfred Hitchcock; it’s due time I explore the latter’s influence deeper.]

a little deeper or a little more deeply?

[Piffle? If this is going to reach an older audience, I have to get out of Emmett’s mindset. I mutter, “Dammit” to confirm my memory of real curse words. I consider the controversy created by a children’s author trying a more mature venue, but I’m not writing smut here, just mystery. Detectives say dammit. They say ****. They do not say “Piffle.” ]

If you are going to put colons around Piffle, I think that you should use them around dammit and ****, as well.

[All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” ]

I can definately connect with this!!!! LOL

It stings a little, but I’ll hit the space bar with my left thumb. No big loss.

Maybe write it.....left thumb;no big loss or
left thumb...no big loss. I dunno...it seems more like a continuation, not a seperate sentence.

[I look at a photo of myself with an arm around a man in a giant raccoon costume from four years ago. Has it been that long since I’ve produced anything?]

Had it been that long since I'd produced anything?

[Is that why Martha didn’t push ]

hadn't pushed

especially since you next say...

[We’d spoken about] next.

Even so, we asked Janette Healey

[we'd asked]



[Even my pep talks come in verse. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to kick off this endeavor with a martini.]

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea....

Find the proper level of intoxication: not enough alcohol causes my hands to tremble the same way as too much. ]

tremble the same way as too much does.

[Down a flight of stairs, past a run of photos and an embroidered family tree Martha’s sister Denise put together for us. ]

This seems like an incomplete sentence.

[ I’ve no idea why we don’t take it down. ]

I've no idea why we haven't taken it down...

[I descend into the entertainment room, circle the bar, and reunite two of my favorite friends, Gordon and Gallo. ]

omit the comma after bar

[but as an author, I’m required to have a vice.]

absolutely mandatory!!!

In the title, did you mean to say "hunker" down? Or, is there some meaning to the use of the word "bunker" that I didn;t catch while reading?

I love reading your work! It's always so imaginative and descriptive! You always throw in a chuckle or two, which I enjoy!

My main qualm is that I never felt the impending doom of an unknown intruder...which is a good twist, led with alliteration to Hitchcock and Poe....but your writing is so upbeat and matter-of-fact, that I think it may be hard for some to cross the threshold into terror while maintaining the freshness of your writing style.

I love your contibutions to this site and the feedback to offer to everyone! 4.0

Was this comment meant for me? I only pointed out to Nash waht I thought could be improved upon. I also welcome detailed critique of all of my works. The last on posted was for the HAC project which some people seem to like....but alas, after countless re-reading, I found errors I'd made after I posted the piece....which no one has pointed out.

I feel that Nash is a truley exceptional talent...he's far better than me and has alot of published works to back that up! I think (and I'm not trying to put words into his mouth), that has a genuine regard for my writing, as well.

Although I don;t know that I can truely count him as a friend, I feel that friends should be completely honest with one another....and that as aspring writers, we should all do the same.

I don't think that I wrote the comment harshly. And I am pretty sure Nash will consider at least some of the points valid....or tell me to go t hell....but that's for him to decide.

Again, I welcome any and all feedback. It's how one learns and grows, in every aspect of life.

Perse:

1. Go to hell. Pick up my mail while you're there, wouldja? I forgot to leave my forwarding adress.
2. No need to exert yourself with every nit. I'm content to hear "inconsistent verb tense" and leave it there. Seems you're exerting too much energy. Mainly what I want feedback on is story flaws. I'd argue some of the grammar fixes above, but several are accurate and some entail writer's license. I have Strunk & White but I don't reference it.
3. While I'd love to have produced many published works, it hasn't happened yet. Writing is the easy part for me; marketing/selling is a bitch.
4. Count on me as a friend? How 'bout we call it "respected peer" and leave it there for now? I like your work (still think your roller coasters tend to be too much freefall and not enough recovery time).
5. And this is for everyone: listen to ALL feedback you get. Select how you want to change and improve your current piece or future stories.

I especially appreciate how you are one of the few who's bold enough to list her votes and the accompanying reason(s). Rainy Days has accumulated over 30 votes and (including mine) 13 comments. Doing the math, I can tell I've received some particularly low votes. You don't like it? Fine. Explain why. If you merely torpedo stories without reading them... well hell, then you're not reading this comment either.

Good luck to all in the contest. I eagerly await this round to be over.

Sorry I offended you, Nash. I did read the story in it's entirety, and overall liked it very much. Thus the 4.0. I enjoy most of your pieces. Based on the adjusted judging guidelines of the last contest, I included in my overall summary the fact that this wasn't "ready for publishing...perfect as is". Not taking that into account, I would have given you a 4.5.

Sometimes, in issuing braod statements such as, "inconsistant verb text", I get responses to point out the errors. Then, I have to go back, re-read and re-write. I was trying to avoid that. I should have know that you would know what I was talking about if I'd made that simple statement vs working it line by line. My apologies.

In all fairness, your reviews seem to be longer than most. To some, that comes off as overkill, too. I don;t mind it, because you always make a point...and with intrepid flair, might I add.

This wasn't a chew-you-up-and-spit-you-out comment...at least, I did not intend for it to be. (Which I hoped to convey in my opening).

Best of luck to you.

Not taken wrong. Not offended. First numbered point was a joke. Evermore inclined to leave less and less feedback. I appreciate the time you took - I know what that entails. You have as much right to dish it as anyone on the site - nature of the beast. It's why I finally cracked and wrote my soapbox piece. May do you well to do the same so you can aim people at your logic without unintentionally offending others.

Is it tomorrow yet?

I'm not commenting any more on this piece unless direct questions are asked. In fact, unless otherwise requested, I think I'm altogether done commenting for this round.

We all have our days. Please keep writing and keep commenting....I usually like to read your comments before I even get into the stories...gives me a fresh outlook and perspective. :)

Done commenting-but not done reading them right?
I can't say my two cents will be much different from the rest of the gang, but jeez, Nash, you really know how to paint a picture. Tell me you agonize over these characters you come up with? Tell me you struggled to find your way into this guys mind? It all comes off so effortless.
For the first minute or so after I read this, I thought it was more charcter driven, less plot to build on for a contest like this. Then, (epiphany!) I realized that it's exactly the right chapter for a five round slamma-jamma. You nailed it. It's got the tense, quick, curious feel of a modern 'The Outer Limits'-(or something Hitchcock-y). Damn you. ;)
4.5 (deduction for all those well pointed out punctuation/tense errors- ha ha)
Foo

I know you don't pay attention to..."My God, Nash, you are truly the Messiah here" or any and all of the other laudable comments you consistently (and well deserved) receive. So, I'll abstain and simply give you my usual 5 vote!

This is definitely the number one story. The only reason I would not want you to win is because I DO NOT want to mash it - because there is nothing worse than a story that starts out so well, and goes downhill in the second chapter. There are a lot of talented people on here, but I don't think anyone has your style (which is probably 30% of why the story is successful -the other 70% is just an awesome story), which will be a sore disappointment in chapters to come. Ah, piffle!

oh, and 5 thumbs up!

I disagree, wendy. I don't think there are alot of writers that can sustain the voice and tone that nash is seemingly comletely comfortable writing in, but I do think it would beneficial for everyone to have to think outside of their own writers-box, find another voice for the talents and essentially spike the punch here, if you know what I mean. Raise the bar. Exercise those latent muscles and really encourage the contributors to work for it. ;) I'm all for a challenging contest-

Oh, I totally agree! It would be a great writing exercise for everyone.

I wish someone would tell the great grammarian persep... a lot is two words. I loved your story Nash and I am sure we will see your name on the New York best seller's list.

alot is one word. the form was amended years ago.

Noun
alot

Common misspelling of a lot.

Usage notes
A spelling of ‘a lot’ in the adverbial senses of "very much or many" and "often" frequent in informal writing but not generally accepted by arbiters of English usage. When it appears intentionally in print, it is generally either representing the original spelling in a work quoted, or is an attempt by the author to convey poor education in the character using it.

(PER WIKTIONARY)

The story dragged out too much for me. Didn't hold my interest, but at the end it did pique my curiosity as to who was in the house for what purpose. It just took too long to get there.

I might add that I prefer faster paced stories and that yours is a good story no matter that it wasn't fast enough for me. :o)

Piffle! Piffle is my new favorite word. Hilarious.

Your writing is extremely clean, and for that, I'm eternally thankful.

The chapter flows wonderfully. Almost poetically.

I love the child-like Dr. Seussian verses that are interwoven throughout the chapter. Well done!

"..as an author, I'm required to have a vice." Isn't that the truth?!

This is a terrific start, but I'm not thrilled by the ending--I would have liked to have a more ominous feeling regarding the intruder.

Great job overall!