Young Writers Society

Ramblings of a lost art student - after revision by a few YWSers. Thanks for the critiques!


To Whom It May Concern:

Gotta art-ify a cucumber for an assignment. It’s a green cucumber. What else is there to say? I’m tired. It’s green and slightly spiky. Cool, that’s right too. Cool as a cucumber, or something like that. I’m tired; why am i tired? Music isn’t even going to help me get un-tired. I need some sleep, but it’s not time to sleep. The project, the art project, the cucumber; why the hell a cucumber? Makes no difference to me. Maybe prof’s got a cucumber farm or something. Stupid professor, stupid assignment. I’m tired. I should sleep with cucumber slices on my eyes, then I’ll adopt the essence of cucumbers into my empty head. Maybe food is good. Cucumber slices maybe? I’m thirsty and tired. I’m tired. Why is it a cucumber? Damn cucumber.

To Whom It May Concern:

Damn cucumber. Why are you green? No cucumbers for dinner tonight, I drew them all away. Stupid art project. Stupid college. Art. I need some salt water. To the sea.

To Whom It May Concern:

Salt water. Refreshing sea spray. I like the bluish sea. No more cucumber green. Green, no, no, not green. Blue. Air. Boat-spray. White boat, blue water, salt water. Not green. Onward, to travel ahead. Blaze a path across the stars. Cucumbers can’t be cool when they’re in the ocean. Go ahead and rot.

To Whom It May Concern:

Blue > Green. This is necessary. I’m not tired anymore. Music helps. I’m not tired. Above it. I must be above it. I am above it. New things to do. Write something. Download to a page. Barf it right onto the page. It’ll look pretty later. What is pretty? Why pretty? Why not pretty? Pretty is for wimps. Blue is good. I’m not tired. I’m distant.

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m distant. It’s part of the art thing. Why can’t I be inside? Why can’t I be in the action? Because I comment on it. And I can’t comment on myself without being wrong. Logic. But I’m an art student, why do I believe in logic? Logic didn’t make half the things humans like. Money and greed, now you’re talking. Damn the money. I’m in a cheap apartment in Portland and I’m fine. The happiest people aren’t the richest people. It’s in the change, it’s fleeting. I’m distant. It’s fleeting. You have to keep getting it. Or you have to compare it to something else. It’s nothing if there’s nothing to compare against. “Then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against,” Ray Bradbury wrote. Fire-Captain Beatty was right but wrong. I’m distant. It’s fleeting. Beatty was right but wrong. Facts can be true or untrue. Things can be black and white. But there is more. There are colors. There are shades. Money and greed. It’s fleeting. I’m distant. I’m at home when I’m distant.

To Whom It May Concern:

I hate cucumbers. I don’t care if they’re cool.

To Whom It May Concern:

I like my boat. Ocean and distance. No cool codes or cool cucumbers. Boat on blue on black. Sky blue and black. Boat onward blue and black. Glass-bottle ship goes sailing. Sooner or later it’s going to break. It will possibly capsize. It might make it. Glass-bottle ship will crack when it sails. Are you ready? Plug the cracks, or let it break and man the wheel. The ocean can set you free. It’s certainly big enough.

To Whom It May Concern:

Crumpled me. I, who am crumpled. Problems should be crumpled, not me. Crumple some paper and watch the chain reaction. Throw the paper into the river. Get yelled at by some cucumber. Damn cucumbers. Idiots on the TV; call them cucumbers. Idiots on the radio; call them cucumbers. Idiots in popular “music;” call them cucumbers. Cucumbers everywhere, cucumberian people.

To Whom It May Concern:

Cucumberian people try to be cool. Cool as a cucumber. Cool is not a good thing. Cool is about as fake as mirages of islands on the sea. Cool blows away and leaves idiot things behind. Cucumbers follow. Ocean leads. Ocean goes in and out regardless of the temperature. Cool is broken. Ocean is stable.

To Whom It May Concern.

Hey there, supersquirrel! Walker here as requested!

Because this piece is on the shorter side, I'm going to slim my review down to two sections. These are; Nitpicks, and my Overall. I'm sure you'll get the just of it when you read it!

Nit-picks:

It’s a green cucumber. What else is there to say? I’m tired. It’s green and slightly spiky

To make an effective ramble, when you write a paragraph, try not to repeat a noun, adjective, or verb. Hell, thats a rule for any prose. When you repeat words like 'green', it gives the effect of redundancy and lack of vocabulary. A reader, unfortunately, does pick up on these minor details so I would change the word green to maybe a shade of green? Like 'limey and slightly spiky' or something like that.

I’m tired; why am i tired?

the second 'i' should be capitalized. I'm a grammar nazi. Its a problem.

No cucumbers for dinner tonight, I drew them all away.

Either 'drew' was a typo, or a clever play on words. Either way, I'm not sure I like it xD.

I need some salt water. To the sea.

This is so random. Like, in rambles, we usually see a thought process that brings this forth. You just have it jump sporatically into the ramble which surprised and confused me. I would try to lead into this better.

Salt water. Refreshing sea spray. I like the bluish sea. No more cucumber green. Green, no, no, not green. Blue. Air. Boat-spray. White boat, blue water, salt water. Not green. Onward, to travel ahead. Blaze a path across the stars.

Your lines are becoming really jagged. If you are attempting a ramble, give us full thoughts too. This is so fragmented and so... 'Blue. Its blue. I like blue.' that its becoming repetitive and redundant. Give a few 'If only everything could be so wonderfully blue' or something like that in there.

And I can’t comment on myself without being wrong

There is nothing wrong with this line. I just wanted to comment saying that its probably my favourite line in this entire piece. I adore it.

And thats all for my Nit-Picks section!

Overall:

To be completely honest with you, I'm not quite sure what the point of this rant was.

I liked reading it. It was interesting and it made me hate cucumbers, if it makes any concellation, but the thought process was so jagged that it was irritating is some sections. Thoughts and rambles dont have to be just four word sentences and smaller. You can give the same effect whilst not having to repeat yourself a thousand times over.

Which brings me to my second point. Some of the repetition is lovely effectually, but when its overdone, it becomes redundant which is something I'm sure you don't want. Try to take out some of the useless repetition. Theres a lot of it there. You could easily slim it down.

Lastly, I will say that I really liked this piece. Whether I found meaning in it or not, I did enjoy reading it on a specific level. It was fun and quick. The thought process was interesting, especially about the cucumbers and constantly going back to them. I also really enjoyed how some of the little sections were only a sentence long. I thought that played really well with the theme.

Keep writing and I'll keep reading!
~Walker