18 Comments
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Dee's avatar

Your characters have depth and believability. I like the few physical details, and the large emotional ones.

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Tara Lundon's avatar

Please keep typing. I NEED to know what’s happening with Gabriel, Paul, and Linda, AND Bucky’s serrated knee!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I’m working right now!

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Yelling at Clouds's avatar

LOL!

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Yelling at Clouds's avatar

super cool to witness the process of this story being born. Thanks for including us in the process, Sherman. It felt like the young heart started beating with this installment.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you, Tim. It would’ve been impossible for me to do this just a few years ago. But it’s invigorating. And it’s fun to share the process. And, yes, with this draft, I felt a leap forward.

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Yelling at Clouds's avatar

I used to be a musician, and during the recording process, you get the basic tracks down, then start adding, shaping and enhancing. There comes a point when you start to see the final draft taking shape. I would always go through a little post-partum depression when a record was completed. I never imagined that the writing process would be similar, but it seems to be. Can I ask if you ever feel sad when the story is finished?

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I’m generally not happy with anything I’ve written so I always feel like I could’ve done better.

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Yelling at Clouds's avatar

Well, knock that off. You are one of my favorite writers of all time, but maybe that's because you're so hard on yourself. Maybe the potential post-partum depression of giving your stories to the world is mitigated by getting to keep the wonderful characters alive in your heart forever. You'll never be alone now that Thomas Builds the Fire is lurking about. My life is certainly better for getting to know him.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I love my characters. I just have problems with the housing I build for them!

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Steve Lovelace's avatar

I Love character depth and background. Ready for the next rewrite or the final.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you, Steve. Working on it!

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JB Minton 📺's avatar

There is enough world-building here to be a novella. If so, perhaps using Linda's poem sentences as chapter headers might be interesting as she's the character in the middle, the mirror whose reflection seems to create the images these men have of each other all the years after they met as roommates.

The silence where men refuse to communicate their feelings to one another is a No-Man's Land that takes no prisoners. This is good work, my friend!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you. Interesting idea about the chapter titles. I’ll ponder it. I’m really looking forward to working more on Linda’s story.

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Kathy Morefield's avatar

Omigod, this is great! I can't wait to read more.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you, Kathy!

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Wayne Kigerl's avatar

Great story. The only thing I might add, as an ex-logger, is about "a man cutting his knee in half with a chainsaw." Maybe: "cut his leg off at the knee," because cutting a knee in half implies a cut that goes halfway through the knee, which is bad enough, but comparative anatomy starts with dissecting a lot of formaldehyde cats and sharks, so there's that.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Great point. My Dad did cut his knee with a chainsaw. And from my childhood view, it did look like he cut his knee in half. I mean to represent a kid’s point of view. There’s more to the episode so I’ll clarify (in some artistic way) that it ‘s the ten-year old Paul’s point of view. Thank you so much

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