First page from my novel "The Surface of the Sun"

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... which I will likely never finish:

Chapter 1. There is a buzzing.



Looking towered the afternoon sky, a flock of geese fly overhead. And I think to myself how these geese fly back and forth in some preordained fashion; how much simpler it must be. I com to realize that this ay not be the case at all, and rather these geese, and their romantic rendezvous, through exotic locations, over mountain passes from some northern lake in british columbia or alberta to vacation over winter in southern California or Louisiana are not migratory at all - rather these geese are stationary, receiving all that they need from the nearby townspeople, year-round without needing anything more - generation after generation subsiding winter long on stale bread crumbs provided by the hands of enthusiastic toddlers as their parents nervously take photographs.

These geese know nothing of a desert oasis or southern swamps with those odd trees: the ones which rise with roots which resemble a bundle of a hundred legs. They know nothing of Alberta or the Canadian Rockies or The Cascades of British Columbia. They only know of this lake, as naturally formed as the Wonderbread which they are fed, and the plastic bags left behind, to litter their environment, as if the bags themselves are somehow any less natural than the dam that created this habitat. A dam created when the trains needed water to feed into steam engines; today, the lake serves no practical purpose. No need for water. No need for geese. These things remain only decorative, and without function.

At this time of year, late in the summer, the Kansas sky turns a brilliant orange as the sun sets. As is the case everywhere, but there is a certain quality to the Western Kansas sky that is no where else. I'd say that this sky makes living here almost bearable, if it weren't for the fact that it isn't true. Life in Western Kansas is fickle. A sense of something missing, a sense that there is an entire universe out there, but the horizon is so wide you wouldn't know it. Like there is something you're forever missing out on, but you have no idea what it might be. The world is a distant mystery, or a concept in our heads. You can feel the rest of it all around you, but no telescope or binoculars or any other instrument could ever be so powerful that you could see it, or even know if it's any better. If you try, all you would see is more wheat, more grass, more sagebrush, more of the same landscape before you, off into an existential infinite in every direction. The only way to know for sure that there is something else is to travel. It's a funny thing, travel, for those who are born and raised here travel is a temporary thing no matter how much your intentions are to make it permanent. People go out into the exciting world and always, without exception eventually come back.

I came here in the mid 1990's for no particular reason. The barren isolation which makes this place so unbearable provides exactly the contemplative, yet torturous self discovery I did not realize I was seeking. I'm not a new age psuedo-buddhist. I haven't given up my excessive lifestyle of eating animal products yet. I have no problem driving a Mercedes SUV. If I were, I wouldn't have come to the realization that I was seeking in the first place - I'd be too busy complaining about the narrow minded hicks that inhabit this place, longing for a decent sushi bar or a place to get a fat free chai latte. I'd be too busy seeing this place for what it's not than what it is, and paradoxically, the two are not mutually exclusive. The minds here are narrow. The people are typically judgmental, unfriendly and unwittingly under-cultured, each with a haircut unchanged since 1952. In truth, I will not make this realization for some time, long after I also, an outsider, pack my things and move on leaving this place untouched, as does everyone else who travels here. Unlike the locals, those who travel here never stay.

© 2012, Shawn Kearney
 
Good LORD! It's even shorter here! That took forever to write.
 
I would immediately suggest having this proofread before sending it to anyone. Too many typos to list, full of name droppers, cliches and overly redundant to get to the point which is a bit muddled by all the other grammatical errors. I wouldn't tell you to quit writing, but would suggest a good creative writing class, a handy grammar book and some lessons in sentence structure.
 
^^ the redundancy was very intentional. Cliche? Meh. Typos, I'm sure there are a few.

Name dropping, through? Do you know what that means, or is it something you read in literary reviews?

I don't mind a critique, but a laundry list isn't helpful.
 
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I believe that is why he posted it here, to have it proofread. It's a first page from an unfinished novel so it's bound to have mistakes. Don't be too upset about critiques. You must kill your darlings and not get yourself wrapped up in them too much. Perhaps pointing out the typos and name-drops may help him flesh this out further. I would like to know where this is going and want him to continue on.
 
Oh I'm seldom upset about critiques. The problem is that isn't a critique. Like I said, it's a laundry list.

Drex - i've added exactly one sentence LOL. I'm at a huge standstill, the first part of a novel is always the hardest. I want it to be about the search for being content, and never being able to achieve it. It's also a bit experimental, I hope to never introduce any external dialog, which is much MUCH harder than you'd think it should be.

There are problems with sentence structure, but at the same time I want to convey a sense of internal thought. So it's kind of difficult to maintain proper grammar while projecting this sense of daydream. I don't mean to be making excuses, there are no excuses for poor grammar, just providing some background to what challenges I'm facing. However, the weird future tense/present tense juxtaposition is intentional and is important later on.
 
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Oh I'm seldom upset about critiques. The problem is that isn't a critique. Like I said, it's a laundry list.

Drex - i've added exactly one sentence LOL. I'm at a huge standstill, the first part of a novel is always the hardest. I want it to be about the search for being content, and never being able to achieve it. It's also a bit experimental, I hope to never introduce any external dialog, which is much MUCH harder than you'd think it should be.

There are problems with sentence structure, but at the same time I want to convey a sense of internal thought. So it's kind of difficult to maintain proper grammar while projecting this sense of daydream. I don't mean to be making excuses, there are no excuses for poor grammar, just providing some background to what challenges I'm facing. However, the weird future tense/present tense juxtaposition is intentional and is important later on.

I deleted a previous post and sent you a PM listing my laundry list as it applies to your writing. What you are trying to accomplish is not for the feint of heart. That is a type of mastery I've rarely seen accomplished by a novist writer and my immediate feeling is you should start with smaller steps.
 
I would immediately suggest having this proofread before sending it to anyone. Too many typos to list, full of name droppers, cliches and overly redundant to get to the point which is a bit muddled by all the other grammatical errors. I wouldn't tell you to quit writing, but would suggest a good creative writing class, a handy grammar book and some lessons in sentence structure.

damn...if Unpopulars novel bugged you..Theodor Geisel would probably make your head explode!
 
my immediate feeling is you should start with smaller steps.

I'm not going to take this advice :)

Now. as for your corrections, there's a lot there I can work with:

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For the most part, I agree with your corrections. Obviously all the typos, I am not even sure I copied the right version!

There are some points which I'll discuss, but everything else is sound advice.

The Wonderbread name dropping is intentional. I used Wonderbread as an archetype for something plain, bland and lacking substance. Perhaps this archetype doesn't translate outside my own lexicon.

There are locations where geese have become dependent on human interaction, and are no longer migratory. In fact, the lake I am describing is a real place in Ellis, KS. But I didn't want to make this about Ellis, because it's not. It's about Western Kansas as a conceptual idea, not a specific location. While it may or may not be plausible that the Geese subside exclusively on breadcrumbs, the fact that they are not migratory has everything to do with breadcrumbs. This is the larger point here.

You've made a couple appeals to authority which I won't mind any attention to at all. I am pretty sure that Steinbeck also had teachers telling him his sentences are too long, and I doubt he said to himself one day "now that I am a famous author, I'm going to start writing paragraph-long sentences". That said, I do agree that I have a bad habit of writing long sentences that do not flow as they would need to in order to be successful. This, though, has nothing to do with my lack of recognition as an author. As for the three short incomplete sentences, if the only problem is that I do not have a creative license as ordained to me by a publisher, I think i'll keep them.

For the cliches in the lines about Sushi Bars, Lattes and Mercedes cliche is exactly the sense I was looking to achieve. The fact that this is the complaint actually really interests me. What kind of worries me is that you didn't see it.

One thing I hate about many writers is overly describing things in a soup of adjectives. I don't think I need to describe 1950's haircuts, because we all have an idea of what that is. What my impressions of what a 1950s haircut is specifically is completely irrelevant, the point is not about haircuts but rather that they are unwilling to accept change. It is of course impossible that everyone has a haircut unchanged since 1952, as this would mean that everyone is at least 60 years old.

I have no intention to write something that is targeted to a mass audience. I don't have any interested in lowering the bar to appeal to a wide audience, nor am I saying I have successfully risen the bar to some pretentious level, only that I'm not about to spell things out like a crappy Michael Crichton or, and worse, Ann Rice novel. Most of my inspiration comes from Annie Dillard, not paperback best sellers. (Huh, now that I think of that, maybe a title change is in order)

I don't mean to say your comments are not welcome, because they are. I hope I am not coming across as whiney and like "but but but! it's my MASTERPIECE", because I really don't feel that way at all. If I'm going to understand what I'm writing, I need to be able to defend the choices I've made - even if they aren't successful.
 
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My entire response went off into cyberspace but rather than repeat it all, I will merely wish you the best of luck. By the by, you never defend bad choices; you learn from bad choices or you die on with a dry pen.
 
first though, I need to be sure it was a bad choice - or just your opinion.

Thanks again though, I REALLY do appreciate your input.
 
I've edited over 800 short stories, novellas, screenplays for TV, instruction manuals and a novel or two. Most everything I ever passed on to the publishing editor went at least as far as committee. I will not say everything made it past that, but at least 40% did. One house was a bit more stringent in what it accepted while the other a little more lenient. When I read, I had three boxes on the floor next to me. The first box was the first culling and those I tossed in there went to an editorial distributor..mystery here, romance, there, etc. The second box went to the first set of "in-line" editors..not quite ready to be in the big time but good readers...the third box got the Dear John, form letter suggesting classes in creative writing, grammar, etc. Had your entry been sent to my current house, it would have immediately gone into box #3.

There is never any intent toward cruelty, it is merely a time and money issue and in the publishing business, it is all about timing, and all about getting the best of the best. However, if you are serious about wanting to become a published author...then by all means write, write, write.
 

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