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The sun was about to break through the clouds and make my life a lot squintier. I had been hoping the cloud cover would last until I was done, but it wasn't. At least it wasn't raining. I'd rather be sun burnt and half blind than cold and soaked. Maybe I could afford a cheap pair of sunglasses after this haul. I gave my garbage bag a shake to gauge how full it was. Hmm. Not this time. Maybe next week.
I remember riding along the highway with my father when I was 12 years old. When he finished his drink, he rolled down my window and threw his empty plastic Coke bottle out into the ditch. Being a child raised on Sesame Street, I brought up the issue of littering.
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Let me give a little explanation of the above fragment. It's from a very short story I wrote (about 1000 words) called "Ditch." It's about a guy who lives in his van and earns money by collecting bottles from ditches along highways. He's perfectly content with this lifestyle.
Posts: 3 | Registered: Feb 2006
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It has promise, but you make too big a deal out of the sunglasses. Fueling a van takes a lot more money, if it comes to that. I would offer to read this, but I'm just doing a drive-by to get back in practice right now.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Warning! Warning! Author follows up with expanation!
Hard truth: As writers, we get our words and nothing else. If you think it's important that this guy makes a living collecting cans from the side of the road then show it to me in your first paragraph.
I didn't feel as if much was happening in this introduction. Given that this is only 1k words, I tend to need every word to mean something. I think you may need to find a different starting point, but then that's just one person's spin on it.
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