Steph, one thing I really like about it is that the whole rhythm of the piece, the way you've handled sentence structure and such, has a very appropriate raw immediacy to it.

Steph, email or here? What's your pref?

Whichever you want, Deb. I don't mind public feedback, as long as the phrase "illiterate git" is used sparingly....

Addendum: I've reached a comfortable pain-management point (finally!), so I'm going to take advantage and go to sleep. I'll look forward to your comment in the morning, Deb.

Illiterate git? Ha! As my Japanese friend Reiko said, when her husband was transferred to Teheran in the late seventies and assumed she'd go with him, "Fat-o Chance-u."

In re the piece, it's quite powerful, and I'm with Susan on the sentence structure adding immediacy to it. But I would make one general comment: I think the sheer quantity of adjectives weakens its impact. We have a cornucopia of adjectives: we have searing, sharp, unrelenting, burning, pulling, aching, and those are in the second paragraph. So the reader is reeling, and that's good, because it has the ring of an arrow hitting home, whang in the gold.

Third paragraph, "And the pain is constant. It's always there." OK, it's horrendous and it's always there and the details you gave of it made my own tum tighten up, because I live with numb-tingle-roar, so to me? Very real indeed.

However, you weaken the impact:

Fourth paragraph, there's more: constant, aching, burning. Followed immediately by "it's always there". If this is deliberate, an emphasis thing, could you clarify that, somehow? Because, as written, I'm reading and saying, OK, but we've established that and repeated it and described it up above, so....? The second half of that paragraph is sensational, by the way.

Paragraph 5 made me jump. Beautiful, simple, evocative and real.

Penultimate paragraph sums it up, perfectly. And it also makes the final paragraph yet another repetition, and I think not needed (or at least find a way to extract whatever will feed the penultimate, and combine them.)

Any help?

I think my absolute favorite moment is

So I snap. I snarl. I click my teeth together furiously, like a wounded animal who doesn't know how else to react other than to bite out of fear and hurt and helplessness

That's quite excellent, I think.

And I think that if I could change one thing, it would be the first paragraph:

It consumes me, devours me whole. It's become the primary focus of my every waking moment, an overlay obscuring everything else in my life, my mind, my body. Above everything I do, my overriding awareness is of pain. First, last, and always.

-- it is, I think, kind of overstatedly dramatic? (I am approaching this completely as a work of writing, as you asked, and as is, I think the only useful sort of feedback I can give. Still, I hope that I'm not coming across at all as callous.) If it were simpler, it might be a more compelling beginning. Is my feeling.

'allo, Rebecca my one true love.

I left the beginning alone, so as not to touch the emotional content at the opening.

You are not coming across as callous.

You are not coming across as callous.

(I was just checking. Because sometimes I get paranoid; and I worried that some of the people in this thread don't have... the ability to get the same degree of detachment from writing's subject as I have, and they would think I was being insensitive? I do know from past discussions here that I'm kind of on the extreme end of that scale.)

(And *now* I'm worrying that those hypothetical Buffistas will read this and take offense at the idea that I am somehow saying my way of reading is much better and more sophisticated that their hypothetical way! ahahaha.)

(Go to bed, Rebecca.)

No, nonononono. Steph was specific: she wasn't venting, she was presenting something that was going to be read to a group of people, and as such, she wanted edits on all levels.

Besides, if you're callous then I'm worse, and I'm a big old softy-head.

And we both lurved the piece.

Steph, sweets, what are they in fact doing for your back? Do they know what's causing this? With only brother and older of two sisters both having suffered from severe disc compression, I get militant about doctors just telling sufferers to experiment with muscle relaxants or heating pads. Have they figured it out, and what are they going to do to fix it?

Deb, Susan, Lizard -- it's 2:30 a.m., and I'm going to address your thoughts in detail tomorrow, but I am up for the time being, and wanted to say (1) thanks! (2) I overuse adjectives mercilessly -- part of that is because this is a first draft and when I wrote it I was, in fact, experiencing searing aching [etc.] pain -- so that was more from my core-dump; I always end up taking adjectives out. (3) I'll take a sentence or phrase from the final paragraph and weave it into the penultimate paragraph and leave it that way.

(4) Lizard, definitely NOT callous! This is what I wanted!!!! I'm not very thrilled with my small group in class this semester; this is the type of feedback they *should* give me but don't. The way the class is structured is this: it's 20-22 women, 16 weeks, 1 class a week, 2 1/2 hours a class. For about 1 1/2 hours, the entire class is together, doing some in-class writing to a prompt the teacher chooses, and then we read back what we wrote (if we choose; it's much more of a loose workshop than a *class*, per se). For the other hour of the class, we are in groups of 4-5 women that stay together for the semester -- this is our small group. It's designed so that each woman can receive more intense, specific feedback AND can give specific feedback to the members in the small group.

I was in the same small group for 2 semesters, and they were wonderful at giving feedback -- especially my first drafts, pointing out what they liked, what worked, and what could be tightened or clarified, or what points I might have not explicitly written but needed to make explicit.

For some reason my teacher split us up this semester, even though we had requested to stay together. I had hoped that new people would be a good experience -- fresh eyes and ears -- but they're not very good at saying what needs work. Mostly, it's all "I like this; I like that; this reminds me of such-and-such."

It's very frustrating, and I've thought about requesting to be switched into another group, but that would make things in such a small overall class VERY awkward. So, I'm taking what I can from it, and plan to have a talk with the teacher before she assigns small groups next semester.

(My writing school -- it's really a wonderful, wonderful school.)

And man, can I ramble!

As for what the docs are doing for my back, Deb -- I'm taking oral steroids, muscle relaxants, naproxen, and Tylenol 3 (I was taking vicodin for the pain, but it makes me itchy and hive-y). I had an MRI a week ago, which showed that my bottom 2 discs are bulging out and pressing on my sciatic nerve.

My doc referred me to the very good back and spine clinic in town, and they're going to see me, but the soonest appointment they can get me in for is April 7. Which is fine in THEORY, because I'm taking oral steroids for 12 days, and I just started them, so I'd like to let them run their course and see if they help. However, after a day like today, I want to say they aren't helping.

I'm going to call the clinic Monday and let them know I'll take any sooner appointment, even if it's a last-minute cancellation.

So. There you have it. My feelings about the feedback here (summary: thank you! not callous!), my class, and my back.

Now I go back to sleep.