For those of you who don't know, writing a story is a real pain in the ass.  It isn't all as simple as putting words on paper, as there is so much to consider before deciding it's finished enough to publish.  Like any art form, writing is a craft.  Michelangelo Buonarroti did not one day in his youth pick up and hammer and chisel and carve his Pietà.  Successful writing takes a great knowledge of English grammar, yes, but there is so much more to it that many folks don't quite grasp.  Sure, it may look good to you, but will the world at large accept it as the masterpiece you think it is?

 

Years of study are the beginnings of it, but practice and harsh criticism of that practice will take you very far.  The problem is that too many have trouble accepting criticism, and therefore they don't learn.  Arrogance achieves nothing for your life.

 

I have two reasons for saying all this.  The first is that I recently put "Cat's Milk" up on Critique Circle with the hope of getting some good advice.  In retrospect, I wish I had done this before posting my story on six other websites.  So far, two of those reviews have mostly been of praise, but there was one--there's always that one, isn't there?--that found issue with much of my story.  I have to say that although I disagree with most of what they had to say, I still find myself thinking of certain ways to improve the story.  These improvements are not exactly based on anything this critic said, but they are based more on the challenge to my haughty attitude.  I came to realize that there are certain ways in which "Cat's Milk" could be spruced up some, and these ways are each tiny in nature but huge in their overall impact.

 

One example of this is the mention of how after Aaron's grandmother died, her house was burned down and all the cats inside were cooked with it.  The person asked who lit the house on fire, since the government isn't likely to light a house on fire to destroy it, especially if there are animals inside.  This was a valid point.  To fix this, I decided on adding in one little sentence that would imply that the house was set on fire by one of the two main characters.

 

After reading the story, it's good to then look back at the rest of it in retrospect.  Remember that Aaron is the one writing the story, so all we have is his word.  It's very possible that he's embellishing and outright lying in some places in order to justify himself to us.  I don't want to get much further into this because I don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read it.

 

One simple issue one of the critics pointed out is how I used the term "amber alert" when it should be "AMBER Alert," so that's another one of those changes....  My story will stay as-is on those websites.  I plan to release the updated story some years from now when I try to publish in physical book form a collection of my short stories.

 

My second reason for mentioning the hardships of writing is to help me form an argument as to why I haven't been working on my next short story.  Sitting all day in front of a computer that is hooked to the largest source of human knowledge and idiocy tends to be a bit distracting.  YouTube in particular is especially good at stealing my time.  I admit that I'm addicted to the likes of Game Grumps, Thecomputernerd01, Screen Junkies, and about 50 other channels.  As of late, I've also gotten back into playing Runescape 3, the biggest chance to waste years of your life just to prove your gifts of patience and boredom to others online for no tangible benefit whatsoever.

 

As I'm writing this, I'm eating a bowl-full of homemade mashed potatoes that I made from scratch all by myself.  Not only so, but in it I have chicken, beef gravy, melted mozzarella, garlic, salt, pepper, and dried herbs.  Yum!

 

Anyway, so I've been slacking.  The good news is that in my slacking, I've decided how I want to write "Patient #7542," which of course is very important.  My original idea was to separate the story into journal entries that each began in the first person voice and then switched to the third, but I was having a hard time with this, as it didn't give me the freedom to fully describe everything and get you, the reader, immersed in my story.  While "Cat's Milk" was essentially an all-tell and no-show kind of story (as a critic pointed out), "Patient #7542" is all about getting you involved in my nightmares.  It's the perfect springboard for many of my stories to come, and I'm thinking it probably should have been my first one.  Oh well.

 

Stay True!