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Zani D's avatar

@Thaddeus Thomas

This is the caliber I'm able to put out now, when it happens.

Like 99% of my work it's short.

You're gonna hate it. And love it.

I think @Emil Ottoman 's first reaction was something like “oh fuck you, you don't get to do that”.

https://entropicabsurdity.substack.com/p/take-me-to-church

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

Dear Lord this is glorious!

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Zani D's avatar

okay ilysm and I appreciate it but does it do what it needs to do? if that makes sense?

it's the type of thing that you can say too little or way too much very easily and my biggest goal with these stories is never to tell people how to feel. do you think I accomplished that?

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

I think it was what it needed to be, and if I were critiquing you, I wouldn't know what to change. I'm afraid to read the updated version now.

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Zani D's avatar

I just checked and that story has 40 or 50 comments now I can't remember 😆 but you have access if you're curious what The Editor saw that you didn't.

Updated version isn't in progress yet, but this was when I first started writing. There's a marked difference between what I was doing then and what I'm doing now (when I'm able to summon the function to write).

it's no pressure at all tho this is great and I'm very adult about it no confusion and agitation at all 🙃

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Nick Winney's avatar

it doesnt need a thing changing from a reader perspective but im sure you have a lot going on in your mind you feel you can add to it.

the story is yours and youve told it very very very well. but the story is always yours to tell how you feel it should be.

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Nick Winney's avatar

The message in this is screaming and yet the words are soso quiet. All of your charms pieces are just superb. im sitting in my car in a cloud of feelings this has inspired, remembering times like this in my life. the times you realise there was something else going on but you didnt clock it until it was too late and the moment passed and peoples lives were changed forver.

did you have a moment to change a life and you missed it.

The power of words.

oooph. im done.

Thank you for sharing this Zani.

looking for an emoji but there just isnt one.

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S M Garratt's avatar

Please don't change this. Trust in yourself that what it is, is what it is meant to be. The narrator's voice is perfectly balanced between yours now and yours then; that's really hard to do. Enough of you now to make it poetic and lyrical, and enough of you then to hold the truth of the moment, the rhythm and tempo of thoughts at that age. Leave it alone and go work on something else.

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ARC's avatar

Haunting, restrained, and beautifully observed. Damn, Zani D, the timing is impeccable. That final image with the mouse—quietly devastating. This joint is raw but unforgettable. You’re onto something real with how you unveiled this memory.

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