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[Cyan]

Great story, Ashes.

 

[Ashes]

<3

 

[Rock And Roll]

Congratulations Ashes and good work everyone!

 

[Ashes]

P.S. My friend came up with the title for my story. She refuses to be acknowledged though. My original title was: 'Sleeping In Your Birthday Suit.'

I'm going to post most of the next thread's op in here, because:

1, I'm lazy.
2, I'm opting for a minimalist theme.

 

[Nezumi]

So the topic is "I'm lazy" and the secondary is "be minimalistic"?

 

[Ashes]

So the topic is "I'm lazy" and the secondary is "be minimalistic"?

I'll post it up in a bit.

 

[Ashes]

Since we're doing a minimalist thing, for one thread only:

[No Theme. To clarify, the theme isn't 'no'.]
[No Secondary]
[1000 words or under. Not one word over.]
[No titles for stories. Not even 'Untitled'.]
[Entry Deadline is strict. To the minute.]
[Voting deadline is strict. To the minute.]
[No critique.]
[On second thoughts, critiques are fine.]
[On third thoughts, only positive critiques. Highlight one thing you liked.]

That should weed out a lot of people. These are terrible rules for no god damned good reason, so I'm out. #rebel.

If you choose to rebel, the neogaffian gods be with you. You and your story is at the mercy of your fellow gaffers, because going by traditional ops, your story is ineligible to vote for and win.

But since I'm going on a hiatus, I don't know what judgement will befall you, so best play it safe.
Challenge #159 [Creative Writing]

 

[timetokill]

Jooooooooin us...

Oh, cool! I sent a PM over to the OP, so we'll see if it works out. sounds fun though!

 

[Cyan]

Mike M: This was the subject of a small revelation for me. I brought this to my writing group last week, and we had a new member who used to be an editor for a literary magazine who told me that she liked my style, but would have sent me a polite rejection if I had submitted this because there were no stakes in play, making it more of a vignette than a fleshed out story (I subsequently went back and added the bit about Robin fearing that Brad would not pull it off and ruin Madison’s birthday to at least attempt to mitigate this). I super appreciated this critique, however, because she articulated exactly what had been lurking in the back of my mind that I considered to be a problem with the story, but was unable to figure out on my own. I’ve often found that “slice of life” stories such as this don’t exactly thrill me, and even when they’re well-written they usually don’t get my top vote (there are exceptions of course), and I don’t particularly enjoy writing them that much (again, with exceptions). And I think it’s the fact that there’s usually nothing at stake is exactly why. I enjoy reading and writing funny, snappy dialogue, but if there’s no fail state, there’s no tension. Without tension, all you have is slack that never really goes anywhere. I don’t know if I would say I succeeded in “fixing” the story entirely by bolting on the possibility that Brad might fail, but I think I at least improved it.

Just as a minor bit of feedback: yes, it worked. I felt throughout that he might fail, that his daughter might either see through the disguise or be displeased with his portrayal of Batman. These are fairly low stakes, but perfect for the story.

 

[Tangent]

Tangent: I tend to agree with Nezumi that there was something about this that rubbed me the wrong way, but I think I&#8217;m a little more able to put a name to my pain and it is Batman. Right from the outset, we have a five year old with an au pair having a birthday party with black bean patties. Right off the bat, that paints him as not only coming from money, but preachy vegetarian money, and makes him hard for me to relate to. Granted, the fact that the kid&#8217;s parents are obviously well-to-do is no fault of his own, but I was kind of put out of sorts right from the start with that bit. The eventual plight of the mother seems like a shameless ploy to play on our sympathies and make them not appear like heartless monsters for forgetting their kid&#8217;s birthday, but if anything had the opposite effect for me and just highlighted how self absorbed and not vested in their child they are. Not that I don&#8217;t sympathize with them, but even when the shit is hitting the fan, you keep track of your damn kid. Or at the very least if you can&#8217;t be bothered to get in touch with someone you pay to raise your kid for you to tell them that something is wrong and you won&#8217;t be home until late, hire one smart enough to figure out how to make an outgoing call if it&#8217;s abundantly clear that something is wrong instead of just staring at her phone like a fucktard waiting for you to call them. Candace&#8217;s inaction is just baffling and adds to the whole anger pie I&#8217;ve got baking at this whole family. Grrr, now I gotta go punch something.

I'm impressed that you said you could articulate what you bothered you. Like Nezumi, I sometimes get stuck with not being able to describe what bothered me! I too get annoyed with childhood abandonment. I know a kid from a somewhat rich, but more importantly, self-absorbed family where parents are super famous academics. Like, Steve Jobs famous in the world of genetics. And parents had a Portugese-speaking nanny for their kid. They couldn't talk to their own child because they spent no time with him and the kid only spoke Portugese.

But I also wanted to mention that au pairs are always way more affordable than nannies and are usually cheaper than day cares, at least where I'm from. Plus, I think it's neat when someone has a live-in roommate all the time like that. Also, just from personal experience, I come from a family where eating meat was associated with wealth -- this was decades ago when my parents were first exposed to all the meat available -- but still, I don't think "yuppy vegetarianism" is always about lots of money. And as you mentioned, I think there are kids born into wealth who aren't brats. This kid didn't ask for a big party, tons of gifts, etc. (And also didn't throw any fits.) But yeah, Sober mentioned that the parents didn't even have a gift... if for some reason they forgot a birthday, they still probably had their gift ready in the trunk of their car or something at night. I think this was a hard idea to sell because I was trying to think of two things: (1) When is it ever OK to forget a child's birthday? Is the answer never? Probably, but just wanted to toy with the idea. People think it's OK to forget adult birthdays or important yearly events all the time. Usually with a gender bias. (2) When does one person feel bad, but the non-guilty party is also feeling guilty or understands the situation differently in their own narrow vision of perception? Even if the guilty party was in a narrow world of vision as well?

Side note: cool that you're from Fresno. Also, I think it's doing well. I know someone who moved to Fresno and they commute to San Jose for work! Oy!!!
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"I have a lot of projects that I think about incessantly. Then I somehow trick myself into thinking that might mean I'm actually working on these projects. But daydreaming is not the same as chipping away."

That sounds exactly like me...

We must stop the insanity! Stupid brains.