I don't know where this is going yet... but I'd appreciate it if you find anything off about what there is so far... thanks in advance.
The Artist
My only friend was a painter named Lisa who lived in Columbus Park. One Friday afternoon when the lawyer was due home from New York I called her.
“Oh hey,” she said.
“What’s up?”
“Oh. Uhg.”
“What?”
“Oh, God. You know how my life goes. Life, you know, gives you everything you need, I still don’t doubt it, but in this one case the means to my end is kind of ugly.”
“How so?”
“Well, how so? That’s the question. I’m trying to finish this picture yesterday… was that yesterday? Oh, yeah. You know the one with the woman holding the lightbulb? Anyway, so I want the background even and I run out of paints. You know I’m broke, but I walk down to this art supply store anyway, and start talking to the guy who owns it, and - what do you know? Kaching! He asks me out on a date.”
“That could be good.”
“Yeah, good… no. Not good, Ace. Not good.”
“Why?”
“The guy is slime. He’s lewd, he’s nasty. I’ve only been in this town two months, and even I know he’s well-known slime. You should see this guy. He has the paint, though. And he said he could give me a discount.”
“Well?”
“I have to go to his apartment to get it, though. It was the way he said it, like he was so… clear about it. I don’t know.”
“So what did you say?”
“Well, if I went to his place at ten like he wants I could be back and working again by midnight or so. And I’m sitting here looking at this picture and I know just how I want it, too.”
I told her I had a dozen or so big bottles of acrylic someone had left me once.
“Acrylic. That might work.”
“I’ll bring it over.”
“And I’ll cancel my date. Or maybe I’ll just stand him up. I don’t have his number and I don’t feel like walking back there. The fucker. Thanks, Ace.”
So when the lawyer got home I told him I had to run an errand. The traffic was horrible that night. I was stranded on a bridge over the river for twenty minutes, staring in the rear view mirror at the city he hated and watching the license tags of a dozen Jeep Cherokees slowly move forward and then shudder to a stop again. The whole city seemed to be vibrating with the sound of car engines. When I found a space a good ten blocks away and had walked back it was almost midnight. The lawyer had gone out and had a drink with a friend and had come back with two movies. I made a salad of arugula and mozarella and set the table, and then the lawyer was suddenly angry.
“I don’t see why you have to leave all of a sudden on a Friday night,” he was saying. “And to spend all night driving around to help your stupid friends with their stupid problems.”
I felt something rising in myself, something unpleasant, a heat in my head. I told him I wanted to go for a walk.
“You just want to smoke a cigarette,” he said, and it was true. I wanted a cigarette very much. A few people passed me as I went along, people on their way home, or moving their cars. I faced the wind for another block, hailed a cab, and got inside. After I realized I’d spent the price of a hotel on the meter driving around, I found a hotel. In the morning I went back to the apartment and found the lawyer pacing the floor. He had tried to make coffee by himself, and I could smell it burning on the base of the machine behind him as he held me.
I paced the kitchen for a little while and realized my hand was shaking. I hadn’t eaten dinner, or had a drink, both of which he needed, so I wasn’t sure which it was that was making me shake. And then I thought about how I really needed to sleep more often. So I had some food first, then a drink, then called Lisa.
“Lisa,” I said. “Something almost as weird as something that would happen to I just happened to me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Remember the guy I told you about - I told you about the ----ian guy, right?”
“Oh, yeah, ----ian. Mmm-Hmm. I told me.”
“He’s in DC for a conference and he wants to come up here for the weekend. And I like him, you know. I liked him a lot in France, but I don’t know if I’m going to like having him here.”
“Wow. That is like something almost out of my life - whatever you said.”
“I just got off the phone with him.”
“This is weird. Everyone is having relationship problems this week, and they keep calling me. It’s in the air.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to tell your buddy about it?” She had a habit of calling the lawyer my “buddy.”
“Of course I’ll tell him. How could I not tell him?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ll tell him before, I mean. I have to tell him now. The sooner the better.”
“You could just go out and not show up the night he’s here.”
“What I mean is, he told me the other night that he wasn’t in love with me, and that he thought we were over. I can just recap what he said - if I can remember what it was, exactly, I think I was drunk.”
“I hate it when that happens.”
“So maybe it will make him realize he’s sorry and want to get back together again. Or maybe it will just make him mad.”
“Well, I guess he did kind of have it coming, if he told you he wasn’t in love with you and it was over. What can you do?”
We talked about her boyfriend, who she broke up with again because he was sleazy. She told him he was sleazy on the phone the other day and he hung up on her and she called him back to tell him if he wanted to talk without getting angry he could call her back. And he didn’t, so she was sitting at home and being hungry and not feeling like going to the grocery store. I told her I’d left a carton of soymilk in her refrigerator the last time I was there, and she said, “Yeah, I saw that. Not very filling. Those eggs you left expired.”
“There’s some calories in the soymilk,” I said, “Especially if you shake it up really well.”
The Artist
My only friend was a painter named Lisa who lived in Columbus Park. One Friday afternoon when the lawyer was due home from New York I called her.
“Oh hey,” she said.
“What’s up?”
“Oh. Uhg.”
“What?”
“Oh, God. You know how my life goes. Life, you know, gives you everything you need, I still don’t doubt it, but in this one case the means to my end is kind of ugly.”
“How so?”
“Well, how so? That’s the question. I’m trying to finish this picture yesterday… was that yesterday? Oh, yeah. You know the one with the woman holding the lightbulb? Anyway, so I want the background even and I run out of paints. You know I’m broke, but I walk down to this art supply store anyway, and start talking to the guy who owns it, and - what do you know? Kaching! He asks me out on a date.”
“That could be good.”
“Yeah, good… no. Not good, Ace. Not good.”
“Why?”
“The guy is slime. He’s lewd, he’s nasty. I’ve only been in this town two months, and even I know he’s well-known slime. You should see this guy. He has the paint, though. And he said he could give me a discount.”
“Well?”
“I have to go to his apartment to get it, though. It was the way he said it, like he was so… clear about it. I don’t know.”
“So what did you say?”
“Well, if I went to his place at ten like he wants I could be back and working again by midnight or so. And I’m sitting here looking at this picture and I know just how I want it, too.”
I told her I had a dozen or so big bottles of acrylic someone had left me once.
“Acrylic. That might work.”
“I’ll bring it over.”
“And I’ll cancel my date. Or maybe I’ll just stand him up. I don’t have his number and I don’t feel like walking back there. The fucker. Thanks, Ace.”
So when the lawyer got home I told him I had to run an errand. The traffic was horrible that night. I was stranded on a bridge over the river for twenty minutes, staring in the rear view mirror at the city he hated and watching the license tags of a dozen Jeep Cherokees slowly move forward and then shudder to a stop again. The whole city seemed to be vibrating with the sound of car engines. When I found a space a good ten blocks away and had walked back it was almost midnight. The lawyer had gone out and had a drink with a friend and had come back with two movies. I made a salad of arugula and mozarella and set the table, and then the lawyer was suddenly angry.
“I don’t see why you have to leave all of a sudden on a Friday night,” he was saying. “And to spend all night driving around to help your stupid friends with their stupid problems.”
I felt something rising in myself, something unpleasant, a heat in my head. I told him I wanted to go for a walk.
“You just want to smoke a cigarette,” he said, and it was true. I wanted a cigarette very much. A few people passed me as I went along, people on their way home, or moving their cars. I faced the wind for another block, hailed a cab, and got inside. After I realized I’d spent the price of a hotel on the meter driving around, I found a hotel. In the morning I went back to the apartment and found the lawyer pacing the floor. He had tried to make coffee by himself, and I could smell it burning on the base of the machine behind him as he held me.
I paced the kitchen for a little while and realized my hand was shaking. I hadn’t eaten dinner, or had a drink, both of which he needed, so I wasn’t sure which it was that was making me shake. And then I thought about how I really needed to sleep more often. So I had some food first, then a drink, then called Lisa.
“Lisa,” I said. “Something almost as weird as something that would happen to I just happened to me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Remember the guy I told you about - I told you about the ----ian guy, right?”
“Oh, yeah, ----ian. Mmm-Hmm. I told me.”
“He’s in DC for a conference and he wants to come up here for the weekend. And I like him, you know. I liked him a lot in France, but I don’t know if I’m going to like having him here.”
“Wow. That is like something almost out of my life - whatever you said.”
“I just got off the phone with him.”
“This is weird. Everyone is having relationship problems this week, and they keep calling me. It’s in the air.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to tell your buddy about it?” She had a habit of calling the lawyer my “buddy.”
“Of course I’ll tell him. How could I not tell him?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ll tell him before, I mean. I have to tell him now. The sooner the better.”
“You could just go out and not show up the night he’s here.”
“What I mean is, he told me the other night that he wasn’t in love with me, and that he thought we were over. I can just recap what he said - if I can remember what it was, exactly, I think I was drunk.”
“I hate it when that happens.”
“So maybe it will make him realize he’s sorry and want to get back together again. Or maybe it will just make him mad.”
“Well, I guess he did kind of have it coming, if he told you he wasn’t in love with you and it was over. What can you do?”
We talked about her boyfriend, who she broke up with again because he was sleazy. She told him he was sleazy on the phone the other day and he hung up on her and she called him back to tell him if he wanted to talk without getting angry he could call her back. And he didn’t, so she was sitting at home and being hungry and not feeling like going to the grocery store. I told her I’d left a carton of soymilk in her refrigerator the last time I was there, and she said, “Yeah, I saw that. Not very filling. Those eggs you left expired.”
“There’s some calories in the soymilk,” I said, “Especially if you shake it up really well.”
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Re: unfinished
Wed, January 17, 2007 - 1:23 PMDid you originally write this in a different voice/person and then go back and do a quick rewrite? Because there's some real pronoun confusion in the dialogue-the type of mistakes I doubt you'd ever make in an original draft, no matter how rapidly you were writing, but the kind that might inadvertently find their way into a revision switching person or tense. Example (I bracketed the offending pronouns with asterisks):
“Lisa,” I said. “Something almost as weird as something that would happen to *I* just happened to me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Remember the guy I told you about - I told you about the ----ian guy, right?”
“Oh, yeah, ----ian. Mmm-Hmm. *I* told me.”
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Re: unfinished
Wed, January 17, 2007 - 1:48 PMIt's interesting to see a work of yours in progress JM. I noticed what Marie Therese mentioned and the overall pace is a bit tighter, save for a few spots, without all the usual description to set mood that you usually incorporate. I wanted more so I'd say you've hit the nail, just keep hammering away. I’m looking forward to reading the whole piece.
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Re: unfinished
Thu, January 18, 2007 - 10:42 AMYeah. I constantly switch things from first person to second to third. -
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Re: unfinished
Thu, January 18, 2007 - 10:47 AMHa! Hard to get away with that unless you're William Burroughs.
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Re: unfinished
Tue, June 5, 2007 - 3:34 AMyea you switched alot....it can keep you on your toes but a little much unless their is multiple personalities at the end
the 'I told me" and “Lisa,” I said. “Something almost as weird as something that would happen to I just happened to me.” stoped me
im not sure what happened with the paint did you ditch bringing the paint to her that night i take it and she didnt seem to care
you made me care about the paint damnit , what happened witht the paint
thsi critique tribe has kept me up past my bedtime but it makes me feel powerful
want to read more though
r~
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Re: unfinished
Thu, June 7, 2007 - 9:14 AMYou've got something going on here, but I think the writing needs a little tightening.
There's a lot of "I did... I told... I went...I and I and I", also lots of "so" and awkward parts that can be restructured for a better flow.
Example:
"I paced the kitchen for a little while and realized my hand was shaking. I hadn’t eaten dinner, or had a drink, both of which he needed, so I wasn’t sure which it was that was making me shake. And then I thought about how I really needed to sleep more often. So I had some food first, then a drink, then called Lisa. "
Can be re-written as:
"For a little while, I paced about the kitchen, my hands shaking. I hadn't had dinner or a drink, both of which I needed. Wasn't sure which was making my hands shake. I really need to sleep more often. But first some food, then a drink. Then I called Lisa."
Another awkward part:
"We talked about her boyfriend, who she broke up with again because he was sleazy. She told him he was sleazy on the phone the other day and he hung up on her and she called him back to tell him if he wanted to talk without getting angry he could call her back. And he didn’t, so she was sitting at home and being hungry and not feeling like going to the grocery store. I told her I’d left a carton of soymilk in her refrigerator the last time I was there, and she said, “Yeah, I saw that. Not very filling. Those eggs you left expired.”
"There’s some calories in the soymilk,” I said, “Especially if you shake it up really well.” "
Can be re-written as:
"We spoke about her boyfriend, the one she broke up with again because he was sleazy. She told him so over the phone the other day and he had hung up on her. She called him back, telling him he can call her back anytime if he wanted to talk, so long as he can manage it without getting angry. He never called back. Now she was sitting alone at home, hungry and not at all feeling like going to the grocery store. I had left her a carton of soymilk last I was there.
"Yeah I saw that," she said. "Not very filling. And those eggs you left? Expired."
"Well, there’s some calories in the soymilk,” I said defensively, "If you just shake it up really well...”
It's all up to you. I don't really mind long, extended dialogues, but if you must inteject it with an action, stick to non-speech actions.
Example:
"Well, if I went to his place at ten like he wants I could be back and working again by midnight or so. And I’m sitting here looking at this picture and I know just how I want it, too.”
I told her I had a dozen or so big bottles of acrylic someone had left me once.
“Acrylic. That might work.”
You might as well tranform the line "I told her I had a dozen or so big bottles of acrylic someone had left me once" into dialogue. If you rather keep it as an interjection, you could re-write it as "I recalled the dozen or so big bottles of acrylic someone had once left me sitting uselessly by the cabinet. I was sure they could be of better use to her."
Okay, I'm done. Good luck!
