From: mdhangton@gmail.com

On Sunday, April 20, 2014 3:33:20 PM UTC-4, J.Pascal wrote:
> On Saturday, April 19, 2014 2:18:55 PM UTC-6, William Vetter wrote:
> 
> > Do you think this is lame?  When I wrote it, I thought 
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> > 
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> > it was a good lost cat flyer, but now, when I read it, it 
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> > 
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> > seems lame.
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> > 
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> > The POV character's wife, as I mentioned above, was a 
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> > 
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> > lesbian and left him for her Asian manicurist as a matter 
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> > 
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> > of backstory.
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> > 
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> > 
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> > ______
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> > 
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> > 
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> > 
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> > 
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> > 
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> >       This one had a picture of a black cat on it.  It 
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> > 
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> > confused me at first, because it began with "My name is 
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> 
> > John.  I am an alcoholic," but as I read on, it most 
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> > 
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> > definitely pled for a lost cat.  "I think I must have found 
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> > 
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> > her on the way home from a bar, because I named her Black 
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> > 
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> > Haus.  I've tried to call her Abby, but she only comes when 
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> > 
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> > I say 'Haus'."  John gave a startling amount of contact 
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> > information, which included his full name and even a 
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> > business address at his job.  "Please," it said, "I go to 
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> > 
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> > the meetings, but they're not enough.  I can't be alone."
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> > 
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> >       I had to mull over this flyer for a while, but, in the 
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> > 
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> > end, it wasn't difficult to understand.  It's hard to live 
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> > 
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> > when there's no one to notice you exist.  Marriage had 
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> > 
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> > taught me that much.  The print was black & white, but John 
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> > said that Haus' eyes were yellow in the text.  All of the 
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> > flyers left me sad, but this one made me feel weak and 
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> > impotent.  There was little to be done but whisper, "Hello, 
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> > John."
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> 
> I like it.  I know what it's saying.  I'm not confused by any of it.  And
the fellow, John, who needs the cat because he's an alcoholic is engaging.
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> 
> 
> I can see why you might have decided that it was "lame" but really, you
agonize over the passage but a reader doesn't stay there that long.  Don't
worry about it.
> 

What I think is that maybe it's melodramatic or cliched.  It seems like all
detectives are recovering from something or other these days.

I got involved with this story a couple months ago...it's the closest thing to
literary fiction I've tried to do thus far.  It's a cat story -- the main
characters are the POV guy and the feral kitten he gets.  There isn't so much
verbal dialog.  It has 
problems.  I'm bogged down in it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)