This was about 15 lines on my wp, but here it seems to be more. I hope you'll forgive me. I think its just how the site has formatted it.
This is the entire piece. There is no more.

Make of it what you will.

ADDED: Sometimes I write these very short pieces to describe something around me, something going on, someone I've met. I preffer not to write these sorts of things as full blown stories, although sometimes certain things end up in my stories...
Anyway, this one's about me. It describes me, at this moment; the way that I feel right now.

The style is my own. It's how I write (however, my style does change as to what I'm writing...) and I wouldn't change it. Unless of course it is totally dire.

What I'm most interested in, all of the time, is imagery. Is how you're seeing what I'm seeing, and wondering whether the mental pictures shared between us (writer and reader) are the same.
In fact, I find it fascinating.
If I describe a large pond as moving with its own life, littered with a confetti of summer dist, how do you see it?
What do I mean by summer dust? How would the pond have a life all its own? What do you imagine as a pond?
All these things. That's what I'm interested in.

I want to know, by posting it here, what you make of it. You may hate it. You may like it. But what do you make of it; how do you understand it?

Lemme know.

*

I floated in a field of cursed, yellow, buttercups. My arms, the limbs of a birch stretching away from me, were the two far poles of the Earth, and my body a cloud aching heavy with rain.

The blue Gentian was the tangled nest of my hair, of my thoughts; the very valves of my sad old heart all twisted and full of sparkling spider’s webs. Above me shone a sky of never-changing blue, lit by a long stretch of horizon; a single brush-stroke of silvered light.

A flock of seagulls, black with red eyes, circled lower and lower over me, and then came to rest on that rolling top of buttercups and occasionally plucked at golden fish just beneath the surface; like field mice scurrying away amongst the tall cover of grass.
I relaxed. These black seagulls, with their eyes of red fire, would not harm me. One landed on my chest and made itself comfortable. Eventually it dozed off under the bright, bright sky, and I forgot about it resting there, moving up and down on my chest as I breathed; moving up and down on my chest as the back of the field rippled away.

I held the world together within the strength of my arms. I bathed in the light of its dying sun; the last battered tune of an ancient clarinet under an evening breeze. At night the stars, one by one, appeared heavy and burning in the dark sky. Overhead a silent moon behind passing cloud turned and twisted like a child in sleep. The tide of that field, of that ocean, slowed, and off in the distant three dolphins leapt from the water to swim amongst the stars.

And I floated aimlessly, always aimlessly, in that field of cursed, yellow, buttercups.

*

TLH

Overall, it's an interesting exposition, but I've got no idea what you're on about. Nor is there any conflict, really. It's just imagery and more or less poetic imagery at that. It feels like a scene of a larger work waiting to happen.

However, since you didn't introduce the piece, and just posted it here, it's difficult to know what you were after.

In the first and last sentences of your piece, you might want to remove that extra comma between yellow and buttercups. Unless, you're putting it there for some effect... ?

This isn't a short story; it's more like a huge chunk of unclear, wordy poetry.

As I said, "Make of it what you will," just what do you think I'm trying to say about myself in this piece?

If it totally stumps people, I'll add a breakdown later on. But hopefully you'll be able to work it out.

I'll be adding an intro... NOW...

TLH

I 've noticed something about newbies coming on to this site...the ones that begin by posting part (or all) of a short stort story don't tend to stay. All I can figure is that they were hoping for praise and were disappointed. I hope you will take my thoughts in the spirit in which they are given...friendly and suggestive. (Total sidebar, it's just something that's been frustrating me lately. )

As for this piece. My suggestion, truly, is that if you write a purely expositive piece with no story entirely for yourself (no desire to publish whatsoever) that this is probably not the story to post for feedback. What are you looking for when you say that you are interested in knowing if people see what you see? Of course we don't. The picture in the reader's head is never the same as in the author's head. As long as you are writing for yourself, however, it doesn't matter one whit what a reader thinks. If this snipet were part of a larger work, or something you were consider turning into an actual story, I could understand the purpose in asking opinions.

What we do best, at least on this site, is pinpoint errors in story structure, characterization, and word flow. While many of the writers here provide excellent description in their stories, we don't tend to comment on it unless there is something wrong with it, something that pulls us away from the story or lulls us to sleep.

With this in mind, all I can say as to my opinion of your snippet was that it is entirely irrelevant. Though your command of the written language is obviously quite good, and the words did go together in complete, coherent sentences, the sentences did not go together to form a clear picture in my mind. Bluntly, nothing is happening here that I care about.

Oh, and welcome to Hatrack.

OK, back to my comments:

Us folks around here are folks, for the most part, interested in writing stories for that someday dream of publication. So when we look at something like this we're looking for the elements that make up a publishable story, or the elements that could become a publishable story. So when we see a piece like yours we're trying to fit it into that somewhat narrow idea of what writing is.

So when others say there's no story here, they're absolutely right. There's no story here. There are some intriguing images and ideas that could lead to a lengthy work of fantasy. But in and of itself, it's no story.

Now, to a more careful critique of the lines you posted, I think the only thing that bothered me was the confusion I had when the seagulls were suddenly catching fish out of water that isn't there. Sure, I understand it's all imagery, but if the seagulls are catching fish (or mice) out of water, I need to see that there is water present (literally or figuratively) for them to be catching fish out of.

Last thought--you need to be cautious around here with figurative language. SF/F readers tend to take things very literally and struggle with figurative language. Similes, where a direct comparison is made, are about as figurative as they can handle. So they're likely to accept and utterly believe that this story is about a sentient tree, rather than a figurative description of a human being.

To tell you the truth, I wrote my comments before reading yours. Shoulda said something along those lines. Forgive me?

BUT, if Tony hadn't said...

quote:

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Anyway, this one's about me. It describes me, at this moment; the way that I feel right now.

---

Oh, and Christine, I wanted to compliment you on the VERY DIPLOMATIC way you expressed your concern over over-eager newbies. Tony's writing is very nice. I hope he's not one of those flash-in-the-pans. Or is it 'flashes-in-the-pan'?

<shrug>

ONLY KIDDING!

I do actually have two books I've been working on for a little while, and I am published. But the small piece I had published was in aid of charity, though it was still in a book...

One of my books is an end of the world story, that is less and more than that all at the same time, if that makes sense.

The other one, is a story about a family of gifted artists in different fields who travel to attend the funeral of their father, and to hear a reading of the old mans will. He left them all only one thing: his last painting, mysteriously titled THE FIELDS OF BLUE GENTIAN. And, coincidentally, that's the title of the story...

Will someone please explain to me how and why the 13 line rule?

quote:

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Will someone please explain to me how and why the 13 line rule?

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Maybe what I need to do is start a topic entitled "Why the 13-line rule" and every time someone new asks this question, I'll update the topic and refer them to it.

So, hang on, TLH, the answer will be in that new topic.

...Coming Back.

Gotcha. Okay.