It's neat to see all this energy over Allyson's essays.

It took me a bit, but here are my bells.

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Canned bells ring out from a little church in a little town where life is sweet (except for weeds creeping up to buckle the sidewalks, drugs, teen pregnancy and the deaths of children playing with guns).

Bells ring for weddings, great white frosted things with laughing 22 year-old tin-can driving college-graduates who will have 2.5 children and live happily ever after. (Or not.)

Bells don’t ring for me. Father O’Malley won’t tilt his head (to let me know the catch in my breath, this presentiment of doom, is unnecessary), and wink to say everything is well; God watches over all.

Oh, Deena. That one's a stinger.

Allyson, backflung.

Like Deb, may be too much feedback. Please let me know.

Also, my Word sometimes doesn't seem to translate all of the "track changes" and highlights and such, so I sent it both as a Word doc and as an html doc, just in case.

Given the feedback, the piece seems to be a "no go."

Back to drawing board.

?? I must not have read the same piece everybody else did.

Given the feedback, the piece seems to be a "no go."

The hell? Everyone else must have been REALLY MEAN. Or something. No, really, I'm confused. I thought it was better than the cat one. Hmmm.

Bells

There should be bells. Bells ringing from every church tower. Ancient air raid sirens dusted off and set to wailing from every courthouse. In the smallest towns, the pastors, awakened by the distant cacophony, should hurry in their robes and slippers to start the bells ringing. People should run from house to house, pounding on doors, their hoarse cries echoing. Children should wake from nightmares and refuse to be comforted. Babies should cry for no reason. There should be summer lightning and the sound of hoof beats. There is only silence and flickering screens and a shiver in the dark.

Allyson, absolutely not what my feedback was indicating at all. I'm sorry if it came across that way. The heart of the piece is excellent. Like everything I've ever written, it just might need some tweaking.

I said this in my email to you, but I think it's important to state here too: your personality crackles out of this piece and makes the reader want to know you, not just Tim.

You may be too close to it right now. Maybe take a day or two and get some breathing room, and come back to it fresh. I find that that makes it easier to see what's great about a piece and what could be done to make it better.

Ginger, you raised the hair on the back of my neck. Nice.

Nah. Everyone was confused by something different, or wanted more than I was willing to spell.

If I clarified all of it to make it crystal, I'd lose my voice in it, completely. It'd be stereo instructions. The problem is, I don't do tender so good.

This one goes in a drawer, and I'll revisit it later.