Sarah

lilmissprincess

Its raining again and yet again I find myself sitting inside the same cafe as I always do on a Sunday morning, drinking the same coffee with two and a half white sugars. So damn predictable. Damn you Sarah. Damn you. I don't want to be you anymore.

He doesn't want you anymore. He wants you to disappear. You are no longer his girl. Get it together girl. Get it together: listen to me carefully: You are not his baby anymore.

I wish I had something better to do than sit in a cafe on a Sunday morning sipping a sweet latte and reading stupid magazines, berating myself.

Even though its raining, the same fitness freak joggers run past the window as every week. I wonder do they notice me. Do they think, oh theres that girl again, like every week. Its routine by now. If they've noticed once they've noticed every time. I am there. A constant presence, like the same cobwebbed statue that stands by the window.

There has to be something more than this.
Something else.
The same women walk to mass with their families, the same cars drive by with children squabbling in the back and parents threatening to stop the car if they don't stop. The same as every week.

And I sit, and finish my coffee. I get up, leave, and look back to see the swinging door close behind me.

Today, Sarah, is your first day. This is the first day of you.

And I walk.

Madou

Oh lilmissprincess, how I do not want to be totally scathing, but don't do this. For the love of creativity, for the love of that which is good! "Listen to me carefully, you are not his baby anymore". No no, don't do this.

Poor Sarah, drowning her sorrows over a sweet latte of a sunday morning. "Oh Starbucks! How could this boy be so unkind! He took his designer jeans and he left!" Our jilted lover has seen the world come crashing down, Raskolnikov knew nothing of such torment.

But no, there is something else. Could it be a silver lining, could it be that young Sarah will fight another day. But of course, with such a distorted view of that which is important, she will persevere and be her own woman (on the arm of a new, more adventurous young man no doubt).

But for now, that must wait. She has the shakes from consuming too much caffeine, and the bill she's run up at Starbucks means she has to start dealing drugs to pay back her debts (hmmm now we're on to something).

Sorry, I don't mean to be unkind, but you do have some nice imagery here and the scene of solitude grabbed me a wee bit. However, the energy behind what you're doing, the motivation, means this is destined to descend into some chick-lit piffle and lose all potential potency.

Have you ever said to yourself, "This is the first day of you"??

Be honest. This isn't.

Matt Holck

obviously
she's leaving town
or at least the cafe

davyjose

Madou wrote: »

I do not want to be totally scathing

In which case you failed.

etymon

It's absolutely impossible to read a tract of writing where 'its' and 'theres' and all sort of grammatical errors abound and I don't mean to sound critical but I just can't get past that when I read it.

dublinario

etymon wrote: »

It's absolutely impossible to read a tract of writing where 'its' and 'theres' and all sort of grammatical errors abound and I don't mean to sound critical but I just can't get past that when I read it.

The original poster could level similar criticism about your crippling fear of commas, etymon. Were you attacked by a rogue comma as a child? I swear, virtually every time I see somebody grandstanding about grammar on this forum, their own posting is muck. People are arrogant and delusional round these parts in equal measure (reminiscent of the head-the-balls who turn up for X-Factor auditions).

Insect Overlord

dublinario wrote: »

The original poster could level similar criticism about your crippling fear of commas, etymon. Were you attacked by a rogue comma as a child? I swear, virtually every time I see somebody grandstanding about grammar on this forum, their own posting is muck. People are arrogant and delusional round these parts in equal measure (reminiscent of the head-the-balls who turn up for X-Factor auditions).

From Wiki:

Muphry's Law is an adage that states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written".

John Bangsund of the Victorian Society of Editors (Australia) identified Muphry's Law as "the editorial application of the better-known Murphy's Law" [1][2] and set it down in 1992 in the Society of Editors Newsletter.[3]

The law, as set out by Bangsund, states that:

“ (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written;
(b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;
(c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault;
(d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.[3]
”

A similar law: "McKean's Law: Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error" has been set out by lexicographer Erin McKean.[4]

Similar laws have also been coined, usually in the context of online communication, under the names of Skitt's Law, Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation (or The Law of Prescriptive Retaliation), Bell's First Law of Usenet, Tober's lor, Gaudere's Law, Naruki's Law and Greenrd's Law, and it has also been called Merphy's law. [5]

It has been pointed out that Ambrose Bierce recognised the truth of Muphry's Law, without naming it:

“ In neither taste nor precision is any man's practice a court of last appeal, for writers all, both great and small, are habitual sinners against the light; and their accuser is cheerfully aware that his own work will supply (as in making this book it has supplied) many "awful examples". ”
—Ambrose Bierce, from Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults (1909)[6]


Muphry's law was brought to many people's attention when it was cited by Stephen J. Dubner in the Freakonomics section of The New York Times in July 2008, when he described accusing the The Economist of a typo in referring to Cornish pasties being on sale in Mexico, assuming that "pastries" had been intended. The Economist responded by sending him a Cornish pasty.[7] As Dubner's fault was the result of ignorance (of the existence of pasties), rather than a typo or grammatical error, it might be said that it was not within the spirit of Muphry's law, as made more explicit by McKean's law.

Anyway, back on topic. I read the first (Madou's) response to this piece and for a few moments I completely disagreed with it. He seemed quite harsh in his level of criticism. However, after a second read, I found myself agreeing with his opinion more and more. There's too many clichéd images and phrases in the piece. It actually reads a little bit like the satirical chicklit novel in Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's last book (but without the extravagent detail afforded to the protagonist's food )

Maybe this was the effect you were looking for OP, a light-hearted picture of a young woman who's struggling to find optimism in a material world. Problem is, the story has been told before.

Finding new ways of expressing universal, age-old issues is a real challenge for writers. This piece just doesn't give the impression that it challenged you as a writer.

neilcassady

Listen your obviously depressed!! God does not owe you anything!! You sit there sucking your coffee in complete bordom contemplating what you would like to be doing rather than pretending to be what you are not. Your writing is like that of a diary. There is no substance in what you are thinking other than a worldly out look of, well, depression. Take long walks, go to burgerking, but stop wasting time in the coffee place because you are probably better than that, probably.

etymon

dublinario wrote: »

The original poster could level similar criticism about your crippling fear of commas, etymon. Were you attacked by a rogue comma as a child? I swear, virtually every time I see somebody grandstanding about grammar on this forum, their own posting is muck. People are arrogant and delusional round these parts in equal measure (reminiscent of the head-the-balls who turn up for X-Factor auditions).

Oh come on! There's nothing wrong with what I have written. Yeah, I could have used commas and the sentence would have been tidier, but at least I can spell and I know what an apostrophe is!

Insect Overlord

neilcassady wrote: »

Listen your obviously depressed!! God does not owe you anything!! You sit there sucking your coffee in complete bordom contemplating what you would like to be doing rather than pretending to be what you are not. Your writing is like that of a diary. There is no substance in what you are thinking other than a worldly out look of, well, depression. Take long walks, go to burgerking, but stop wasting time in the coffee place because you are probably better than that, probably.

Are you sufficiently qualified to make diagnoses on the mental health of a poster? Judge the writing on itself, not on the OP personally. Declaring a person depressed because of one small piece of creative writing is silly, and probably dangerous too.

leon35

etymon wrote: »

It's absolutely impossible to read a tract of writing where 'its' and 'theres' and all sort of grammatical errors abound and I don't mean to sound critical but I just can't get past that when I read it.

Could it be that this is merely an early draft where the need to get something down on paper is far more important than worrying about grammar and commas?

I'm not sure what the thread is about.

leon35

neilcassady wrote: »

Listen your obviously depressed!! God does not owe you anything!! You sit there sucking your coffee in complete bordom contemplating what you would like to be doing rather than pretending to be what you are not. Your writing is like that of a diary. There is no substance in what you are thinking other than a worldly out look of, well, depression. Take long walks, go to burgerking, but stop wasting time in the coffee place because you are probably better than that, probably.

Have you the qualification to diagnose someone with depression on the strength of a piece of writing. A lot of writers suffer from depression and this can help in the maturing of the artform . Some could not cope and commited suicide. Hemmingway, Thompson, Cobain.

I don't think you suck coffee either.

neilcassady

leon35 wrote: »

Have you the qualification to diagnose someone with depression on the strength of a piece of writing. A lot of writers suffer from depression and this can help in the maturing of the artform . Some could not cope and commited suicide. Hemmingway, Thompson, Cobain.

I don't think you suck coffee either.

Are you comparing this piece of writing to Hemmingway or Thompson?

How do you know if depression can assist a budding author?

Are you depressed?

sip coffee, better??

I'm not saying that I'm qualified to
diagnose depression but that sounds like the theme of the story, you know, over coming your demons and such.

Matt Holck

leon35 wrote: »

Have you the qualification to diagnose someone with depression on the strength of a piece of writing. A lot of writers suffer from depression and this can help in the maturing of the artform . Some could not cope and commited suicide. Hemmingway, Thompson, Cobain.

I don't think you suck coffee either.

depression helps me sleep

shiv

I like:
A constant presence, like the same cobwebbed statue that stands by the window.