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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
June 14, 2010
We are our own worst critics. The familiar maxim is given a unique, thought-provoking treatment in Programming Prose by *CastleDean.
Featured by Memnalar
Literature
For Your Consideration
Consider this:
We're going to go on a date, nothing fancy. Perhaps a burger and movie. Afterwards, I will let you walk me home, or vice-versa. There will be no touching, we will remain as pure as driven snow for this night, this glorious evening which will consist of red checker table cloths, Italian food (we nixed the burger idea, or we will at any rate. Linguini with mushrooms and white wine sauce is a little more elegant, wouldn't you say? Lady and the Tramp, they knew where it was at - we'll just push it up a notch) and coffee, followed by an action movie, any action movie, any movie will do. Consider that.
Rewind:
We met in a cloudy b
Literature
...27...
She wore barbed wire necklaces so that every time she laughed, it hurt.
Little Freckles Frankie was the first to make her laugh so hard she bled. He was ten, she was eleven. I don’t think he has found anything funny since. It was too bad really, baby blue eyes tend to twinkle when they laugh.
I caught her countin
Literature
On Disappointment
I.
Out on the porch, my mother sat in an Adirondack chair, smoking
her first cigarette in ten years. The air was hazy and discolored.
Her wedding ring spun on the table, gathering fallen ashes.
I was on the floor, knees tucked up under my chin, poking sticks
down the cracks. She spoke of lies and imagined bliss.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and sighed.
I listened as my mother explained the complexity of love.
II.
Last night he drove just over the state border. I sat in the car,
feet up on the dashboard, singing with the radio. He looked at me
like he had a secret. He was the sage and I was the fool.
So there we were, lying
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This was written as the Deathbed confessional for #ScreamPrompts prompt #4 and a very late entry for #ScreamPrompts prompt #1, kill your internal editor.
I've used several new sources of information to sculpt this piece. Specifically *OokamiKasumi's tutorial High Speed Stories.
I'm really trying to grow as an artist in every way. In my writing, storytelling, imagination, artwork... as well as thickening my skin and taking in constructive criticism. So please, if you choose to read the story, comment. Even if you hate it. And if you could, tell me why you feel that way. I'd prefer to know my shortcoming than to have my feelings spared
PS: The character's names are in all caps to distinguish their names from the normal word. It's a visual aid to compensate naming the main characters after nouns.
EDIT 6.6.2010 With the help of *raspil's expertise, I've corrected all "Action before dialogue" issues, spelling errors, and ambiguous dialogue (at least where it wasn't purposeful)
And with =Halatia's critique, I've revamped the motivation of all the characters and revised the ending.
It's now better than ever before! Thank you both for all your help!
FINAL EDIT 6.9.2010 Double checked quotation mark useage and cleaned up the "code" to be less intrusive to the story.
Thank you again everyone who's given me input. Now I'm off to work on the many things I work on.
DD Note OMG WHAT!!?!? Thank you all so much! This is truly a spectacular occasion. I am so happy right now!!!!!
(Secret Edit) I don't intend to polish this until it decays, but I corrected a minor spelling error (Thank you ~Juandfr)
I've used several new sources of information to sculpt this piece. Specifically *OokamiKasumi's tutorial High Speed Stories.
I'm really trying to grow as an artist in every way. In my writing, storytelling, imagination, artwork... as well as thickening my skin and taking in constructive criticism. So please, if you choose to read the story, comment. Even if you hate it. And if you could, tell me why you feel that way. I'd prefer to know my shortcoming than to have my feelings spared
PS: The character's names are in all caps to distinguish their names from the normal word. It's a visual aid to compensate naming the main characters after nouns.
EDIT 6.6.2010 With the help of *raspil's expertise, I've corrected all "Action before dialogue" issues, spelling errors, and ambiguous dialogue (at least where it wasn't purposeful)
And with =Halatia's critique, I've revamped the motivation of all the characters and revised the ending.
It's now better than ever before! Thank you both for all your help!
FINAL EDIT 6.9.2010 Double checked quotation mark useage and cleaned up the "code" to be less intrusive to the story.
Thank you again everyone who's given me input. Now I'm off to work on the many things I work on.
DD Note OMG WHAT!!?!? Thank you all so much! This is truly a spectacular occasion. I am so happy right now!!!!!
(Secret Edit) I don't intend to polish this until it decays, but I corrected a minor spelling error (Thank you ~Juandfr)
Mature
© 2010 - 2024 CastleDean
Comments93
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Overall
Vision Originality
Technique ImpactI like how you combined the two prompts, two that seem completely unrelated but made them both very necessary to the success of this piece.
I've been at this site a long time and have been part of the lit community for a while and I've read a lot of unusual pieces -- this is off the charts. It's combining different computer programming languages and turning the languages into "people" who seem to be out to get "you", as it were. The "people" aren't random, either -- they are characterized to be what they are.
It seems like characters are taking power away from the AUTHOR while the story is happening, it's not being described after the fact. I think that is interesting as well.
You may be a novice writer but to me, you seem more to be someone who used to write a long time ago but came back to it with better knowledge and a strong will to learn more. This is a very cool piece (and dare I say, original?) that more people need to be aware of and hopefully will be very soon.