Yes, TONS of typos. I try not to pay attention to them when I’m writing. You nailed it, btw. Modern, proper demographic. Thanks for the review!
Novel Treatments / Never Anything
Chapter 1
Red, blue, red, blue, red, blue fog. One light wrapping around the other in slow motion. I hear some people I don’t know saying something about me being awake, but I’m too tired to care. My head, I must have hit it on something. Throb throb throb. Everything at the same pace pounding into my consciousness. I liked it better when the world was falling away around me. Coming back is always a bitch. Suppose I should tell them that I am all right. They always overreact, if only they knew how often this happens, they wouldn’t take it so seriously. God knows I don’t anymore. Anyway, if I get up the energy to tell them I’m ok, maybe they’ll give me some meds to make my head quit pounding. There, that sounds like a plan. Now if only I could get rid of the fuzziness enough to be able to tell whether I’m thinking or speaking. I’m thinking right now, rite. Ok, here goes vocalization.
“Excuse me.?
“Shit she’s awake, Ok now you’re going to have to answer some questions for me.?
Oh, Jesus, they always have to pull this bullshit, like I fell off a skyscraper, or my train derailed and they just pulled me out of rubble after being buried for days. Guess I’ll play along though, anything for some meds, my head will thank me.
“Ok, fine, how about I just tell you the answers? My name is Dawn; I’m in an ambulance, and my head fucking hurts. I’m sure you’ll hold up two fingers because that’s how many you always hold up. Good enough for some morphine? If not I’ll settle for a perkaset.? And my shiny white smile. “She seems clear enough to me,? one of the paramedics said while giving me the worlds dirtiest look. Like they’d be in a great mood right now if all they wanted were painkillers and some bozo demanded they pass a kindergarten test first. I want to be the one in power for once. How come these people get to decide who’s in pain and who isn’t? It doesn’t seem fair to me. I have as much schooling as both of them, but I’m on the begging end. Guess they’ll need some more sucking up before they cave.
“Sorry, it must be the head trauma talking. If I could just please get something to calm down this headache and the muscle spasms, I’d be a much nicer person.?
“Yeah, well, I think you’re just milking us again.’
“You know me; I would never do that, come on, how many times have we been through this before? Honestly, I didn’t know. Good thing he clued me in. After a while, all these people are the same. Same uniforms, same bullshit, same god complex. At least they’re not as bad as the doctors. See, doctors boss paramedics around, nurses even boss them around. They’re the lowest, and therefore, the most tolerable on the healthcare food chain. Always good to have someone put you in your place once every so often. God knows you’d never do it for yourself. Introspection is like a disease in this day and age. I guess people are stupid enough to associate it with vanity (probably due to lack of introspection.) And who ever said vanity was bad? In an out of control manner, sure it’s bad, but so is anything. Vanity is one of the things that set us apart from the dumber animals. You know how they can tell dolphins are just a smart as apes? They look at themselves in the mirror. It shows self-awareness. We’ve come a long way from slugs to be able to recognize ourselves, and now we forbid it. Except, of course, when you’re in your underwear at 8 in the morning scrutinizing your thighs because you’ve found what might be one pocket of cellulite. AHHHHHH! To hell with women and paramedics and everyone else. Where am I? Ah, yes the ambulance.
I have the sinking feeling that the paramedics have been trying to talk to me for the last few minutes. I imagine them screaming in my face trying to determine weather or not I’m lucid, or if perhaps they might get to pull out the defibrillator (Yea, always fun!). I can just see them now standing over me with the paddles envisioning themselves as George Clooney and yelling CLEAR. All the while I make strange, confused faces thinking about pockets of cellulite and the impending doom of humanity. Disturbing thought. Maybe they gave me drugs before I started begging for drugs while I was out. I am getting tired all of a sudden. A good nap, that’s what I need. Cures you of anything, especially pounding headaches that the freaking paramedics who are supposed to treat you humanely won’t help with the advances of modern medicine. A good nap is definitely in order.
Chapter 2
Irish Renaissance Literature. Never have I had a class so boring. It’s a funny thing, too, because I’ve had this teacher before, and found her so interesting. In fact, it’s not that I don’t find this interesting; I just can’t seem to stay awake. I got enough sleep last night. I didn’t read the material ahead like I should have, so that should make the lecture more interesting, seeing as how I don’t know what’s going to happen in the book. Maybe it’s the room. Pretty bright in here, but maybe it’s the height of the ceiling or possibly toxic gas leaking from the air conditioning vents. It could be anything. I’ll have to content myself with scribbling nonsense in a notebook until class ends. Tick tock tick tock. Oh, why am I so tired? My eyes feel like they have weights pressed against them. Like they’re sinking into the bags underneath them and my entire head must follow. And it’s only been 15 minutes since I last checked. Finally, in my last desperate moment, when I’m sure I can’t stave off sleep any longer, class ends.
Now, as I sit painstakingly in Intimate Relationships, I find myself watching the clock for when class will get out. I hate this class. Teachers who decide to sit in front of a classroom and mumble incoherently for over an hour shouldn’t teach. I do feel better now, though. Not tired at all. Probably because I grabbed a cup of coffee between classes. Not that coffee usually wakes me up. I drink so much of the stuff that I’m almost completely immune to it. Guess today’s a sensitive day. I’ve taken like five pages of notes already. I should get an A+ just for tolerating this guy and being able to decipher his nearly unrecognizable speech patterns. Not to mention the volume. I’m in the third row, and I need to clean the wax out just to hear some of what he’s saying.
You know, now that I think about it, this has been happening more and more lately. Very sleepy in Literature and very awake in Intimate Relationships. They’re only ten minutes apart from each other. Might there be a pattern emerging? I have heard of having a particular time of day that you slump in. But this is more like a switch than a slump. Figures, as soon as I switch my major, I become interested in psychology and disinterested in English. Maybe I’m bound to dislike any classes that have to do with my declared major. That would make some sense. If that’s the case, then I should declare physics as my major until the semester I graduate, when I change to English, all the while having taken English courses. But I would loose my scholarship. It’s probably a slump or something. Must be.
Now that my hearing is finely tuned, on to my stinking job. They tell me that I shouldn’t work, but I don’t give a damn. I need freaking money! My parents are useless as far as that goes. Oh, they have enough, just not for me is all.
When my little experiments get dull, which, inevitably, they will as people are quite predictable, I think about other things. Sometimes, I think about how to make a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, it can’t buy happiness, but it can buy comfort, and there’s a very fine line between the two. After all, no matter how in love you are, or how enlightened, you’re just not going to be thrilled to get up every morning to go to some awful job you hate, work ten hours, and go home to a welfare slum and eat Ramen Noodles for dinner. Sorry idealists, but it just isn’t happening.
So there are various schemes I’ve come up with. My ingenious plan to sell tapeworms to fat women, for one. The greatest weight loss program in the world, requiring no will power, only a minor surgical procedure at the end (which is far less invasive than lipo), and you get to eat more than you did before. Do you think I could get Richard Simmons to be my spokesperson? He’s got all the desperate overweight women in the palm of his hand. This definitely could work. The only problem is to find financial backing for such a plan.
When all else fails, I’m left talking to myself. Sure, everyone thinks they talk to themselves, but when I’m out of good ideas, I really talk to myself. Not out loud or anything, but in a way. If you are going to have a proper dialect with yourself, you need to actively ask questions. Where is all of this going, I ask myself? Shall I watch people dribble on with their lives, being a drugstore clerk forever? Probably, my brain tells me. Statistically, upwards social mobility is extremely rare. I mean, technically speaking, I am middle class, but my parents wont dish out shit, so seeing as how I make minimum wage, this means I am, and will stay, working class. See, proper, unemotional discussion with yourself is possible. If fact, other people often make what would be an unemotional discussion with yourself overheated and passionate. I think it is better in the long run to speak only to yourself about most topics. Like these girls who call each other and bitch the instant something barely monumental happens in their love life. The classic, “should I call him or should I wait until he calls me? The answer always varies, with an indefinite number of rules. This boils down to stupid nonsense. If you had consulted only with yourself, you would arrive at the logical conclusion of, “if I fell like calling, I will call,? answer. This only varies if other person is at work, or you have already called a ridiculous number of times. Also, people would not call and bother you to talk about nothing for hours on end. Surely, they have better things to think about than what Jennifer Anniston was wearing on Friends last night. And if this is all they think about, why must they pollute others’ minds with this ridiculous crap? So, definitely, I am my own best friend.
Uh, must ring up a woman wearing a hot pink halter-top with a bad dye job who is buying yeast infection suppositories and condoms at the same time. Might I reiterate that I hate people?
Finally off work, I have my entire night ahead of me. Night! The most fun part of the day by far. Vast possibilities stretch before me like an open highway. Unfortunately, it is also an empty highway. There are so many things to do, but no one to do them with. I have one friend, Luke, to share my desperation and loathing with. He’s working at his ultracrappy job tonight. So, I’m off to the bookstore. I know very cliché to buy a $4.00 cup of coffee and browse items I can’t afford. But we lonely elitists don’t have much better to do. And I do like to read; I just can’t pay for any books. Fuck this bullshit, I’m not going. I refuse to further humiliate myself. Instead I’ll just go home and not give in to capitalist hell. I’ll go home and…fart around on the computer. Make a compilation CD. Watch sitcoms! Oh, fuck me, my life sucks. Being antisocial is great and all, but it sucks when you actually feel like doing something. And then you can’t just stop being antisocial because you’d loose your only other antisocial friend. Besides, I hate everyone, how could I go out and make friends – worse yet mingle? Looks like the compilation CD wins.
Sometimes I hate being me, not because I don’t like myself, but because I’m stuck being myself. There are things I am not allowed to do. I can’t wear makeup. I can’t wear pink. I treat fantasies of having friends and being popular the way people treat pornographic fantasies. I wish for once I could be all of me. Not just who people expect me to be, and not who I want me to be. I want to just be. Now, I’m really going off the deep end. If it weren’t for school, I’d have nothing constructive to do with my life.
A few hours later, as I sit in my unhealthy isolation (which I actually quite enjoy), Luke calls. He is going on and on incessantly about some sort of personal crisis involving his girlfriend. It’s so strange, but normally reasonable, well-grounded people suddenly change into valley girls the moment they enter into a relationship. It amazes me how much people can change as soon as someone else is involved in their life. And believe me, I don’t act any different; I mean I’m not criticizing everyone else. I’m subjected to the same uncontrolled acts of self-consciousness. I just don’t understand it. I generally don’t really care how I look or what people’s impressions of me might be. In a relationship, though, I suddenly care so much about what just one person thinks. Very strange. I don’t even remember now exactly what Luke’s problem was, just that he was really upset over it. I wonder if that makes me a bad friend. I don’t think so. I bet he doesn’t care so much what happens to me either.
Well, now that his crisis is solved, mine remains much the same. Dorking around on the computer is quickly loosing my interest. What shall I do with my night? It’s still early to go to bed, although I am pretty tired. I hate sleeping though. It’s the most venerable you could ever be. I don’t know how things ever evolved to sleep. I would be terrified to sleep out in the jungle; I’d have no way of stopping things from eating me. Maybe that’s why we developed religion. There’s no other way of feeling safe in such a place, especially back then. Even though everyone is full of unhealthy paranoia, I much prefer to be alive now with a house and a deadbolt. Anyhow, sleep is out of the question until I can’t put it off any longer. Maybe I’ll do some reading.
I just love William Blake. His poetry never ceases to amaze me. I could read the same poem for months until I think I’m starting to understand it. And then I have to work in the art. The complexity of it always holds my interest. But, for some reason, I’m just so fucking tired. Maybe I’ll give it up for tonight and give in
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camawin reviewed Version 1 -
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Ok, maybe I’m dense but I had a hard time relating first chapter with the second, seems like the same character but in extremely different contexts.
That being said I think the narrator has the makings of a great character, some very funny lines:
”...buying yeast infection suppositories and condoms at the same time. Might I reiterate that I hate people?”
good stuff.
I guess for me the complete lack of any sort of coherent story line or plot takes away from the piece(I understand if you are making this a part of something longer)
I think the character has potential, not so sure about how you are going about it. I imagine a lot of people will really like this however so keep on.
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Sangs reviewed Version 1 -
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This quote from the text sums up my reaction to your piece.
“Where is all of this going, I ask myself?”
I may be a freak, but I’m usually leary of 1st person narratives. Often they make me feel claustrophobic, which is the case here. The ‘1st person’ narrator had better be pretty damn interesting and likable for the ‘reader’ to submit to being confined within their consciousness for any amount of time.
If you are dead set on this path you’ve chosen, you’d better introduce something very, very soon to bring about some sort of credible threat to this person’s world, something that causes her to adjust her actions to overcome something, anything.
The way things stand, we are supposed to linger with her ‘stream of consciousness’ until we come back to the point of her being on the guerney in the ER? Please give a some reason to give a shit, something to root for or against.
Just my opinion. Good luck.
matthewsouthern reviewed Version 1 -
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Ok so…Typo’s yes there were a few. But for a first draft this read amazingly well. It was meant to be a very modern piece I presume. As your language seemed to be that of a teen/young adult…Good work all in all.
Matt
katelynjane reviewed Version 1 -
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I felt like I was in a haze the entire time…like the character still hadn’t poped out of their fainting spell. Even the voices of the characters were gurgled with a distance that only comes with fainting. I think this is because you never really expalined clearly when the character was fully awake and everything in their eyes was clear again. So I just assumed that they were still in a haze.
This didn’t really seem like a story but rather a character telling me what was going on and how tired they were. It’s not a bad thing to describe but it seemed like both of these chapters were based around how tired and faint the character was feeling. And in the middle of that there was a few rants about not buying happiness or comfort or the way doctors picked on paramedics.
The story line could have been more interesting and deep if you had taken the time to let the reader get to know the character. Not by spelling out what they were like, their name, or what they were going through. And not even by telling us that he / she hated that class. But show us! Show us how bored the student was. He might write notes, jot things in his journal, check out the girl in front of him, draw a cartoon of the teacher.
You need to describe the settings better. I was unclear through this entire part as to what the setting was like. What did the class room look like? What did the ambluance feel like? Where did the character faint?
Other than showing that the character was tired alot and they got annoyed at everything, you didnt’ really show us what they were like. I dont’ know what she looks like even.
Actually, as hard as it might be to believe after my notes above, I liked this story. I just think with a bunch or more tweaks and correction you could make it 100% better. I like the style, I just dont’ like how you went about it.
It hardly even seemed like an actual story because there was no interaction (other than with the paramedics) with other characters. This character just sat around, chatted to their self and got tired. Give them some friends, give them enemies that they actually interact with. Give them a life!
-katelyn
jkazimer reviewed Version 1 -
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I liked the stream of consciousness in chapter 1. The rambling of a person in pain was a good hook, but I was let down by chapter 2. I wanted action. I wanted to know what happened in the ambulance and why the narrator was on the way to the hospital, but what I got was back story and long narrative on specific courses.
Also, I’m not sure where you are headed so my following comments might not mean anything.
The narrator isn’t empathic, and comes off as sort of cold. It’s lines like this:
“Sometimes I hate being me, not because I don’t like myself, but because I’m stuck being myself.”
I’m left thinking poor baby. Sucks to be you, which I doubt is how you want me to feel about the narrator.
Also, I’m not a fan of your tense. It might be hard to narrate a novel and keep a reader engaged with a future, narrative voice.
Hope this helps.
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