Young Writers Society

Somebody once told me that the heart beats faster at sunrise. I didn’t believe him, but somewhere inside I could feel my heart murmuring to me, “It’s true, I do beat faster when the sun breaks the horizon, I beat harder, I can’t stop.” It was our biological clock, they said.

It was then when I saw the first flash across my eyes of frantic cuts crossing wrists, a snow-covered heap of pills on my pillow, a looped leather belt hanging from the top of my bedroom. What would happen if my heart stopped, if I would die, would all the sunrises weaken away and there would be infinite darkness?

When an ambulance rushed me over to the emergency room, my eyes smoldered and deep in the center I felt a piercing pain paralyzing me, as though I had just finished staring at the sun for a century.
My chest was heavy and deep down in my throat there was thorough death, piercing and black, vibrating all over.

“Are you okay, dear? Hold on tight, we’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

I faded again.

The next time I opened my eyes the sun was high above me and a harsh break of air fumbled with my dumpy hair. Was it morning already? It was not even midnight when I did it, not even midnight!

Men and women in crisp ashen jackets rolled me down the asphalt to the hospital structure, a razor-sharp prickle of an IV tugging at my wrists. They were as pale as ever, no crimson scrapes like I imagined. A smirk swirled over my face, a petite circle above my chin. What have I done? The joy abounded in my lungs, but my teeth were closed. What have I done to myself?

My eyes thundered shut and I couldn’t slide them open, my curls soaking down my back, my skin flaring away with the sun.

It wasn’t night, it was morning, noon, whatever it was there wasn’t any darkness and the sun had already risen hours before. The boy was lying, I raged in my mind, lying, lying, lying. I knew my heart has stopped; why else would my chest be so compacted and my stomach burn itself to the core?

Unconsciousness tingled at my senses and soon my sealed eyes turned on to the emergency room, and they were turning me over, telling me to throw up.

“What did you do to yourself, honey?” Mother inquired of me, a mixed expression of anger and pain in her eyes.

I gagged onto the pillow, doctors and nurses everywhere attempting to keep me alive and awake, my sister praying in the corner, holding slim slippery prayer beads in her palms. I looked at my puke and I witnessed an unfilled, dull sea, without any pills or the remains of drugstore medicines or doctor-approved antibiotics that could make you high in a matter of minutes and make you dead in a matter of seconds. Only water, not even the golden acids that emerges every time the emotions inside you burst. Crystal-clear water.

Not even blood.

The second flash of cut wrists was when my father decided to kill himself jumping off our apartment building. My mother wept through it all, acquainting us with the facts of how he had a sudden, traumatic heart attack while we were in school, even though the sidewalk right beneath the building was covered in splattered brains and blood. Adding one and one makes two, but my mother added wrong and to her it was all a hundred percent okay, we will survive.

As a man stood over me and gave me a nippy CPR, I lightened and the heavens took me to them. I wish it was final, because in what was hours later, I found myself on a springy bed and a breathing mechanism hooked to my mouth and nose. I took it off sluggishly and touched my neck, my throat, fingered the bones above my heart and I felt nothing, no pressure at all.

I didn’t hang myself either.

The night before was far away.

Finally, at nine o’clock in the night I had decided to make it happen. I just did it, wanted to see if my heart will just stop and nothing would happen, just to make sure everyone in this world will experience what my entire existence has been.

Night.

Forever.

I leapt from my bed and swiftly darted to the bathroom tub and turned on the water so scorching hot that sweat buds formed on my face as I propelled my head down under as long as possible and then, it happened.

My breathes ceased. My eyes shuddered.

My heart… like the sun, it was down.

That’s how it all happened, why my hair is still damp and my skin crinkled and drenched.

So the sun didn’t stop rising. My heart didn’t stop. The heavens didn’t take me. The heavens already had a blocked heart, a heart that sat in the center of the sky, watching over us like God in her almighty presence. The sun was the heart of the heavens, a striking reminder of a barren core entrusted upon me.

He was the sun.

The prayer beads, the link.

My heart, the sky—the heavens themselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote this last year.

The main problem wiith this is that I think it's too obscure, too nonsenical, too all-over-the place--if you're willing to critique this, this topic would be of the most help.
Thanks!

I thought that this was rather good once I got it. But I think that's what you thought was wrong, understanding the story. Well, for the first few paragraphs I was rather lost thinking that she'd slit herself, taken pills, and then hung herself (I don't even think you can do all those things to yourself at the same time). It was later that I finally realised (I hope I'm right); she's trying to remember what she did to herself to stop her heart. So to answer your question, it did seem obscure, nonsenical, all-over-the place to start off with, but I did understand it at the end.

I like what you did with the 'no blood' and 'I hadn't hung myself' by putting it in it's own paragraph. If you did the same with the pills, it would be a pretty good effect.

I think that because it is slightly obscure really makes the story! It makes you think - andf you do give the answers in the end so I think that most peole will get it.

I love the opening paragraph...not sure why just love it!

I actually liked the whole thing, your writing is very mature...just one word 'barfed' seemed out fo place with the rest of it...it seemed like a childish word in an adults piece of writing.

I thought it was very good but the most obvious thing that strucks me, and the reason i opened it really was because your title misspelt 'Heaven'. I thought it was quite possibly a play on words, but it wasn't.

I thought it was written pretty well, so maybe no grammatical errors but i think the story lacks a lot of personality. Unless it's the opening chapter in a novel or you're going to add to it and make it possibly a 5000+ word short story it's very bland and generic.

Haha, did you mean to put "The Heart of the Heavems" in the subject line?

This really appealed to me; I do enjoy seeing suicide written about in a way that doesn't involve, "I am so emo. Shattered dreams. Blood. My soul is in pieces. Boo-hoo."

Diction and Tone. Some really great examples:

It was then when I saw the first flash across my eyes of frantic cuts crossing wrists, a snow-covered heap of pills on my pillow, a looped leather belt hanging from the top of my bedroom.

I like this bit because you don't just say "suicide," you give specific examples. It's all set forth very matter-of-factly. Great mental image.

My eyes thundered shut and I couldn’t slide them open, my curls soaking down my back, my skin flaring away with the sun.

holding slim slippery prayer beads in her palms

Sweet alliteration.

doctor-approved antibiotics that could make you high in a matter of minutes and make you dead in a matter of seconds.

Adding one and one makes two, but my mother added wrong and to her it was all a hundred percent okay, we will survive.

Some not-so-great examples:

It was our biological clock or something like that, they said.

Too informal compared with the more poetic tone of the piece.

deep down in my throat there was thorough death, vibrating all over.

Thorough death? What is that, and how does it vibrate all over?

Mother inquired of me, a mixed expression of anger and pain pulled on her eyes.

"Pulled on her eyes" sounds weird--why not just "in her eyes"?

I barfed

Barfed seems like such a childish word. Why not "puked" (also childish, but it seems more appropriate here) or "threw up"?

skin crumply

I would not describe pruny skin as "crumply". It just makes me think of rejected essays, crumpled up and thrown in the wastebasket--I don't think it's really getting at what you were trying to say about the skin.

Sentence structure. You had quite a few sentences that were rather run-on or otherwise incorrectly structured--and I like them. It's candid and poetic, and for the most part, justified.
I like the use of shorter sentences toward the end, especially here:

So the sun didn’t stop rising. My heart didn’t stop. The heavens didn’t take me.

I didn't find this piece nonsensical or all-over-the-place at all. I rather liked it; it's somewhat profound with a good helping of candid honesty and poetic expression. Definitely hold on to this one and give it some attention.

-Colleen

First of all: this is all over the place, and that's good. I like how you dance through insignificant events, descibing them abruptly, then switching to the next one. That's good because that's how I imagine death to be. Like when you have a fever, and go to sleep, and wake up, and then go to sleep again. Everything feels like you're seeing a movie with reels missing. That's good. That's creative. That's intelligent. That's fine. This could've been amazing.

But you get caught on the trap of trying to sound too poetic. Let me explain myself: "Men and women in crisp ashen jackets rolled me down the asphalt to the hospital structure, a razor-sharp prickle of an IV tugging at my wrists. They were as pale as ever, no crimson scrapes like I imagined. A smirk swirled over my face, a petite circle above my chin. What have I done? The joy abounded in my lungs, but my teeth were closed. What have I done to myself?"

Here, you get a few sentences that work. And that don't work. Fo example, the what have I done to myself?s are good, creeping their way into him describing the actions. Nice, stream-of-conciousness shit there. But it is also swamp with overnarrating. That's something I just came up with but it applies to this. You see, you're trying too hard. Crisp ashen jackets? A petite cricle above my chin? It doesn't sound good. It sounds forced. It doesn't flow well. It swamps the reader, and it temps us to skip it, which would also mean that we skip the good stuff too. You see where I'm going.

When asked what made his novels so entretaining for the average reader, and made him more accecible to the public, Elmore Leonard answered that he just cut out the parts people usually skip. That doesn't mean making your prose all short, and quick. Although I do that sometimes, that doesn't make it. It's OK to get carried away, as long as you sound good. Another guy said Bob Dylan's songs were good not because of the messages or anything, but because they were groovy to say out loud. You've got to make the reader want to read your story, make him want to say the words out loud, not plunge through it to get to the good stuff. Look, you pack a lot of emotion, and everything, and the end was really good. It was so good, in fact, that you never really made much sense, and yet I liked it. I liked it because you talk about light, and the sun, and him dying without saying much, and that makes the reader imagine what it's like. How the guy's feeling. I'm not so good at the poetic stuff, I don't describe my characters using complex similes, and metaphors, and oxymorons, but when I'm writing a good story, or at least one that I think is good, I can read it , and just rush through it because it reads easily.

Because I choose words that work. Not all the time. I've written a lot of crap. A lot of really unexcusably bad crap. But when it works, it works. Even when I'm also trying the postmoderist bullshit stuff. And look, here you have something that works sometimes, but doesn't most of the time. You're doing something right. You have talent, obviously. You just need to polish. Masturbate the fucker, until it's strong and ready to be blown. Making someone read this is like asking a girl to get on a penis that's flacid. Or something. See? Not much with the metaphors.

Keep writing!

The main problem wiith this is that I think it's too obscure, too nonsenical, too all-over-the place

Yes. Nail/head.

It holds some allure, I think, because of it's unconventional treatment of suicide. Why is it that suicide is always written about from the noose or under the water, or from the sidewalk? Well, good of you to check in from the hospital.

However, it didi lack focus, and unfortunately, this was fatal. It skips too quickly through time and space, and I, as the reader, couldn't keep up. You need to give a little more (NOT too much, by the way!) concrete description. This is happening now. This happened. Otherwise, to use the hospital metaphor, I pronounced your piece dead at:

Night.

Forever.

My condolences.




-> Oh, and Icaruss's review is undoubtedly one of the best in history. Unfortunately, it almost upstages the story.

That was... a bit random. I didn't really see the point in it. There wasn't any story, it was just writing.

You did have nice descriptions, though. And some of it was funny n a weird, twisted kind of way. It's jus that it seemed to be random, pointless piece of writing. Perhaps if you extended it a bit, added more, it would be clearer, but I didn't get it.

Wow. I wouldn't have expect you of all people to write something like this.

The main problem wiith this is that I think it's too obscure, too nonsenical, too all-over-the place--

Oh, most definately. Yeah, but I think that you really pulled it off quite well. Here, let me show you something if I can find it:

What have I done? The joy abounded in my lungs, but my teeth were closed. What have I done to myself?

I REALLY don't understand what this is talking about. Is the MC glad that this is what turned out? I mean, he tried to kill himself! Why is he happy?

You have a lot of run on sentences which really detracts from the story. I would read this aloud and make sure that all of your punctuation is correct.

I looked at my puke and I witnessed an unfilled, dull sea, without any pills or the remains of drugstore medicines or doctor-approved antibiotics that could make you high in a matter of minutes and make you dead in a matter of seconds

.

Puke is the wrong word. Too childish. So I went to thesaurus.com and I would consider using 'retch' instead. Makes it sound better.

Overall, this was really good. I didn't really understand some parts of it like this:

It was then when I saw the first flash across my eyes of frantic cuts crossing wrists

Ok, what do you mean by flash? He has a second flash too, and I don't understand what he was talking about.

But this was good. Keep writing, Gadi!

BBB

I really liked the vague sense of it. It was an interesting style and it drew me in quickly. It did seem a little like rambling, but that was just an endearing quirk.

I really feel like this is a worthless review, since it has nothing productive in it, but everyone else beat me to commenting. Phooey. Oh well, praise is always good, yes?

Loved it, loved it, loved it. Fabulous job.

*applause*

~GryphonFledgling