From My Novella (2007)

The novella I'm writing will read ( sound ) much like the way I write my poems. I just completed page one ( more or less ) and below is a sample of it's actual text.

*** Anatomy Of A Thunderstorm ***

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I sat in earnest with my fingers nibbling at her whiskers gently. I hear my name calling the virgin winds. The devil’s domain name laid swath in slight sounds called thunder. Crouching by my side, it embroils a set of hatred sticks crouching inside my inner ear lobe. So I leaped up into my favorite corner. Just a coward, as my mother once told me. I looked up and overhead, I can see raindrops tapping near my window. The crack of a whip and a brilliant flash of light strings nudge me every inch toward the corner. I am unable to control myself. Embarrassment doesn’t beleaguer me, but by then it is already too late. Pathetic is this ritual, the anticipation, the adulation and the respect of one of nature’s wild blue wonders.

Do you want to know the anatomy of a thunderstorm? The air is smooth afterwards, the cars never calm me and I’ll wait. The face is behind me now. Oceans riddled with envy. It approaches and never appears unannounced. I need a comforter. My fear of lightning storms is all too great a cause for personal concern. I hope it doesn’t strike me down with fables a forebear. Searching for any relief, my mind crawls inside a tunnel, breathing my last breath, heart stops and benign. Forty-three degrees pinching my brain, then and when is the worst. Its murderous wrath rages onward and through each terrain, over every house and backyard. Sounds of might and holler, buckets of fury and twist soak just about everything in its wake. After is a slight calm. A sigh of relief and a time to relax as the last pitch fork passes by and I can see a bright on moon. I can taste it. Tiny raindrops tell me it’s over. Wait again and they’ll be back to make it a day’s work no more, the street sweepers of life.

There is a simple yet elegant flow to it, and it was both readable and enjoyable yet just a tad elusive in the beginning (which is probably a given to any opening scene anyhow). But, I'm an idiot so please fill me in. In the opening sentence, the one of the fingers nibbling the whiskers or what not, was that making a reference to some sort of pet? Cat? Kitty cat? I only ask because I didn't see how it trailed into the next sentence, so either I missed something completely in its description, or the cat just took a backseat as the thunder and lightening itself came in. If there is a cat or something (whiskers and such), perhaps when you get to the second paragraph you can give a slight sentence or line describing the cat responding to the thunder. Just to keep it in there.
As for the protagonist, it's nice how he has his own unique style of perception, but remember that he is human, so unless he's some poetic/cult type character (the way he's speaking now is usually the way those trends of characters tend to; in novels that I've read, at least), try and keep him more...ah..."conformed to society," human.

Anyhow, that's all I've got to say--which is way too much based off one brief passage of the opening. Either way, I liked it, and I'm happy to see you actually provide a narrative instead of a poem. Keep it up, and good luck.

Watch your tense. You seem to flit between present and past on a per sentence basis.

Anatomy of a thunderstorm.

The only thing I'll say is this.

Think three things.

An after hours opening scene ( #1 ), in a bedroom ( #2 ),
and what I'm intimately touching is female, but it's not a cat ( #3 ).

Novella 2007 : Last Page

Regarding the last page. Last night, I thought up a good 'ending' ending.

I mentioned to another member about previous poem of mine titled :

" What Dreams May Come " is not akin to the actual movie, however this crafted scene in the novella will be. For those who know, you might be able to spot its familiarity.

There's also a short William Shakespeare quote I doubt anyone will notice in the flow.

I really enjoyed that. I just have one problem... in the last paragraph, you have few true sentences. They seem more like ramblings torn apart by periods. Is that purposeful? Or accidental?

Otherwise, the imagery is withstanding. Some parts could use some shaping up, new words, clearer words, etc...

Rambling is the nature of any story.

I'd like to think it's not a rambling but at the same time,
the story has to be interesting in the way I write it because as I told other members once before, I'm not much of a reader in as much as I'm an avid writer.

Books bore me after the first few pages or so. The last book I tried to read I didn't get past page 14 of a 400 page book on conservative politics I agree with. My mother had tons of novels stacked up inside her closet I can't read either. It seems that just about everyone writes in some sort of pain stakingly boring set of routine plain descriptions. I like to twist.

It's good that those of you who read it aren't quite sure of it's form.

That's the effect I want.

manuscriptx said:

I'm not much of a reader in as much as I'm an avid writer.

Click to expand...

You must be an avid reader if you want to make it as an "avid writer". There must be both.

Books bore me after the first few pages or so.

Click to expand...

Try a good book.

Preface for the novella 2007

What does it take to be afraid of the night? The night sky, the shivering fears of a black shadow reaching out and grabbing you? The creepy crawlers, the often times wondering if you’ll make it out alive. The ailments you feel, the name sake you keep, the toils and wonders from up above, the sinister plots, the crackling whip, the toilet will flush hot and bothered. You’re trembling. When does it get easier Kate? I asked like a simpleton’s fool. When does the night time sweat drain away like an effervescent chip of Alka-Seltzer?

When does the life go? Where does the time fly?
When does it all go away?

And thus she said: Sic Luceat Lux.