Thank you for catching those, I will change them when I update the piece. Thanks for your review.
-Jane
Novel Treatments / Chapter Two- One Who Walks the Road Not Taken (Analysis)
Selena walked into the local pharmacy, on a quest to find her journal. She walked up and down the aisles until she found one that had different notebooks, planners, and composition books. There were so many to choose from, different colors, shapes, sizes. Then she saw it. As if it were a moment straight out of a romance movie, where soulmates meet for the first time, she met the journal that was meant to be hers. It was a standard size composition book, with a black cover, and one hundred and eighty pages of blankness that would soon be filled with her inner most thoughts.
__________________
” August 30th, 2005 (Tuesday.) Entry #1
Dear Journal, (Or should I say Poe-Thoreau? I’m not quite sure of how this goes…)
Hi! You don’t know me, yet. My name is Selena Lane. We met today, you thought I wasn’t listening to you in class. I was by the way. It was just hard to hear you. Anyway! You told the class a bit about you, I thought I would start this with doing the same and telling you a bit about me. When I was fourteen, my parents sent me away to a psyche ward…Yeah…that’s probably something I should have waited to tell you, but who needs formality here? My mother has never been very approving of me, my father favors my brother, (You know him, he was in your class before. Please don’t compare me to him.) and my brother, he’s…well…he’s horrible. I don’t think that there has ever been a day where he hasn’t made my life a living hell. I can’t say that I hate my family, because I don’t. I believe that there is hope for everyone, and one day, they’ll so me that I was right to continue believing in them. I also used to go to public school, things went south when I went to the ward. I couldn’t come back here until I was “all better.” Since then I’ve been doing this online school thing. That didn’t work out for me because I have the attention span of a squirrel, and no self discipline. The two things don’t go together well.
I’m a very shy kind of person, and I hate my natural hair color. Dirty Blonde…BLECK! That’s why I’ve dyed it this color. Chestnut brown sounds better than ‘dirty blonde’ don’t you think? Oh! I hate my eyebrows! They are so light! I’ve tried coloring them, but the dye never stays. Embarrassing little story for ya; when I was in sixth grade my dad told me that when you shave something, the hair grows in darker and thicker…I took that as insight to shave my eyebrows. BIG MISTAKE! I had to go to school for two weeks without eyebrows, I was so humiliated everytime someone would look at me, I wanted to scream! Oh, I absolutely love movies too…you’ll probably hear a lot about that through out the school year. I love wintergreen gum, my favorite color is green, and so far…I love your class… “
Just then, Selena’s father knocked on her bedroom door. “Dinner,” he said through it. Selena closed the journal and put it on the right corner of her desk before going out to the dining room, where Andrew, Lana, and Peter were already seated around the dining room table. The room smelled of sweet corn, mom’s homeade meatloaf, and scalloped potatoes. Taking her place at the table, Selena made her plate.
The silence between them was deafening. Selena asked everyone how their day was in an attempt to lighten things up.
”Just ducky,” replied her mother.
”Not too bad. I have some new things to work on at work. Labels, plates, and such. Just keeping busy,” her father said with a smile before getting back to his meatloaf.
Andrew scoffed, “What do you care? You don’t care about this family. All you care about is you. Go to hell.”
Selena froze for a second. “Oh my gosh, he’s going to bring it up again,” She thought. She looked at her parents, waiting for them to say something, something to stop this line of conversation. They didn’t. All they did was continue to eat their food making sure to retain perfect manners, elbows off the table, no slurping their food, etc…Deciding that something had to be said, Selena tried to choke back her rising anger.
”Andrew, I’m not perfect. No one is. We have been over this several times. It should be clear to you that I love you all. I have done my very best since I’ve been home to prove that. I’m not going to keep apologizing,” Selena said with a certain firmness in her voice.
”That’s bullshit Selena. You tore this family apart, and now that you’re home you think a few ‘I’m sorry’s’ is going to fix everything. Newsflash, it’s not! Fuck you!”
Ten, nine, eight, seven….Selena used a tool she was taught in anger management to help her calm down before she responded…six…
”As if things were actually bad here for you. You had a roof over your head, and food in your belly. Mom and dad didn’t deserve the shit you did. The looney bin was bad enough, then you had to throw it in their faces by moving? No…you don’t come back from that.”
FIVE…FOUR…THREE…TWO…The blood was racing through Selena’s veins. She was trying SO hard to stay calm, but Andrew wasn’t making it easy. By now, she had pushed her plate neatly away from her, countering Andrew who had thrown his across the room.
”Andrew, we don’t speak about that. It’s in the past. We’re living for the future,” Selena said quoting Mrs. Markim.
”Oh so now you’ve decided to live? Nice to know, you should post bulletins when you change your mind like that.”
That was it! “Andrew, you taught BIG game for someone who knows nothing! You want to talk about my moving FINE! Let’s talk! How about the night I came home from the hospital, and was in my room BOTHERING NO ONE! Then sweet ol’ mom here comes in and says—-”
”That’s enough. Selena calm down,” her mother said.
”NO! You didn’t want to help me stop this conversation earlier, we’re gonna take this all the way…Anyway, mom here comes in and says ‘We can’t handle you anymore, you can either go live with Summer Rolands, or we can take you to an adoption center. You’re still under eighteen, they’ll take you.’ I asked her why I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to leave YOU because I didn’t want the same things that happened to me to happen to you. SHE FORCED ME TO GO! SO before you say I tore this family apart, why don’t you look at the facts of where it fucking started,” Selena screamed as she slammed her chair back and stood up. ”Father, I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m going to my room,” With that, she leaned over, kissed her father atop his head, and walked back to her room.
As she was walking away she heard her mother mumble, “Back to the cave…” then her brother laugh.
”.... Sorry we got cut off earlier…Dad called me to dinner. Ha, well I guess I didn’t really need to write that because you would have never known otherwise, which is kind of making this rambling null and void. Sorry. I tend to do that sometimes. I’m not stupid, just ditzy sometimes.
Dinner was horrible. Complete silence until I tried to spark up conversation. Andrew (my brother, you used to teach him) just doesn’t understand everything that’s happened. He has a right to his feelings, but if he knew the WHOLE story I don’t think he’d hate me this much. Maybe even not all. Okay, so are you ready for an earful…or an eyeful in your case? I was sent to a psyche ward for overdosing. Short of that is I didn’t feel loved, my parents both hated me, my brother hated me, things at school were horrible, no one listened…I suppose the typical M.O. for any suicidal. Anyway, I was stuck in that hell hole for what seemed like forever, then when I got home, my mom shipped me away. I wound up living with our family friend Summer, for a whole year! Legal custody of me was signed over to Summer, and there was no actual plan of me ever moving back home. I called her mom, and she actually almost adopted me. She taught me how to love, and be loved again. She was a godsend to me. Anyway, my dad missed me, and it was killing him to have me gone without talking to him at least, so he came out so that he and I could spend the day together. Being that I lived four hours away, half the day was gone simply by traveling. When he did get to me, he took me to dinner and a movie, then asked me to come home. Big shock I know, but I missed him too, and moving back started immediately. I was home that night. Well, back to the house at least. Susan’s home will always be my home. This house is just a house. Anyway, Andrew has never understood. He’s just felt what he’s seen from mom and dad. Dad was torn apart, and mom supposedly shut herself off completely. Comatose for a year if you will. I have done everything possible to get back on Andrews good side, or rather, just off of his shitlist. Whew…I suppose that’s probably a bit much for you. You’re just a teacher after all…this is probably meant for short uncomplicated entries. Well…welcome to my life, where nothings uncomplicated, and you always wind up on the road not taken. I’m sorry, my mom, brother and I just had a fight, and it’s taken a lot out of me. I think I’m just going to read and go to bed. Can’t wait to see you in class tomorrow.
~Selena Lane ”
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Jacamo reviewed Version 1 -
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Very tense story,A cry in the wilderness theme.It is well written, tense emotion is well described.The writers “First Person” style of narration suits this story.Reads as thogh it may be a bit of a catharsis.Well done.
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starhammer1 reviewed Version 1 -
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This was kind of hard to read, I did like it however. I think that when you do the journal entry you should use italics for the font, its a lot easier to read and the readers have an easier time seeing it as being seperate from the rest of the story. It wasnt bad, it just needs a little work and I’m sure it will be fantastic when its all finished. Good work and good luck.
Tinamoore753 reviewed Version 1 -
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I thought that was very interesting, it hooked me right away. I would love to read the earlier chapters to find out more about selena. there were a few things I caught that was a little out of place. in the begining of this chapter you wrote that selena’s father favored her brother, but later you made it clear how much he missed selena while she was away. I kind of got the impression that the favorable one was selena by the dad. It kind of threw me off that so much was said and what was said at dinner with only the one interruption from the mother. I was expecting the father to jump in at some point and yell.
the pucntuation was good. there were a few missing words in sentences, but those are easy fixes.
I think you did a great job on this chapter, can’t wait to read more.
1DamagedIndividual reviewed Version 1 -
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I am so confused. I hated the brother and the mother but then again I realized that I was not justified in hating them. They are so two-dimensional that I felt obligated to sympathize with the main character who gets to look pious and perfect while the others are painted as apathetic and hateful. There’s much to be done in the area of Character Development. Overall, this has promise. A little fleshing out will remedy most of the issues.
BillRetoff reviewed Version 1 -
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This was pretty good. Some spelling errors and name errors. It flowed well, kept my attention. I would change “they’ll so me that I was right to continue. I think you meant “they’ll show me”
“Susan’s home will always be my home.” I think you meant “Summer’s home.”
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