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No I'm fine
No I’m fine I told her I said oh I’m dying haha just kidding too much coffee you know how it is and that’s why my hands are shaking so bad I dropped my pen and I said you know how it is you’re tired and you drink coffee but then you’re just tired and jittery and that’s office humor and everyone chuckled because they were as happy as me to not talk about it just like when Karen from HR told me that I looked like I was losing weight and what was my secret and I said that flu I had the last two weeks sure helped and we both laughed and I sure didn’t lie that it was diet and exercise because she never eats less than three orders of mozzarella sticks at lunch and just the smell of them makes me sick the smell of any food makes me sick and sorry I’m staring at your food oh no I’m just on this diet and yeah it’s working but it can’t stop me from looking at your leftover chinese takeout and wishing I was eating it or at least wishing I wanted to eat it but lunch is almost over it will be over soon and then I won’t have to worry about it about any of it because it will be over and I won’t have to worry won’t have to worry about any of it.
No I’m fine I told her I said it’s just been really busy here at work and you know how it is around tax season with the reports and clients and I just forgot to add it to my phone’s calendar and yeah that’s okay just reschedule it I know how important screening is for a man my age and I know I missed the free screenings but the insurance should pay for it anyway won’t it yes that time works and of course I’ll add it onto my calendar right now now clicky clicky click on the keyboard as I pinched the phone against my shoulder and typed random numbers into Excel and decided that wasn’t random enough and I put in a random number generator but what are the bounds so I pulled up the same pdf I’d been editing the last five years and looked at the normal ranges for cholesterol and liver enzymes and prostate specific antigen and yeah I’d better lower the cholesterol number so it looks better and then my wife will let me buy bacon again and oh sorry yes I have it on my calendar and I’ll see you next week of course thank you very much sorry to be such a bother I’m so forgetful well I’d better forget back to this oh haha I meant get back to this work thanks and goodbye and I can’t forget to change the date when was that appointment I missed she just said it but I didn’t write it down I don’t write anything down and I know my wife has it on the calendar at home and I’ll just tell her I forgot to forward the results and I’ll get to it tomorrow but no the doctor closes at seven and the appointment was after work and they would have called right after but they closed so that’s why they called today so it was yesterday and so I put yesterday’s date on it and attached the fake lab results I just typed up to an email and sent it to the wife and the day is almost over and it’s almost over and then I won’t have to worry about it because it’ll be over and I won’t have to worry any more.
No I’m fine I’ll tell her I’ll say it’s just been really busy at work why change it if it works and you know how it is with the reports and the paperwork and the bullshit and she’ll laugh a sad laugh because it’s all bullshit and why would anyone even pay for someone to do that but it’s my night to cook and I’ll be so late we’ll have to order pizza or just eat chips like slobs and I pulled in the driveway and left my briefcase in the front seat I stood on the porch and cleared my phone history there’s no reason to get a call from the doctor if I’d actually gone and gotten the tests done like I said and I locked my phone and went inside but the lights were dim and she had candles going they were scented candles and she was leaning against the bedroom door in a lacy frilly thing and my stomach tied itself into knots and I smiled but not much and she asked what was wrong so I said it I said no I’m fine I told her it’s just been really busy at work I’m sorry I’m late and she undid my tie and used it to pull me into the bedroom with the candles and the silk sheets and she did that thing I’ve always liked but of course I couldn’t get it up I’m sorry it’s not you you’re sexy of course and she really was but no I’m fine I told her I said it’s just been really stressful at work you know how it is and I hoped she wouldn’t ask about the last dozen times I’d been really stressed at work so I kissed her on the forehead and pulled the vibrator out of the drawer and laid her on the bed and why don’t you take care of yourself while I have a drink and try to relax and we can try again later tonight but I knew she’d fall asleep and she won’t try again tonight so I poured a drink and sat in the kitchen and listened to the buzzing from the other room and there weren’t any chips left but there was still whiskey and that was probably better it was cheaper anyway and at least the whiskey didn’t make me sick so I poured another one and when the ice maker stopped I realized the buzzing was gone and I went into the bedroom and she was asleep on her side of the bed and it was late so I turned off the lights and laid down and drank my whiskey and everything would be okay because the evening would be over soon and I would be asleep it would all be over soon and I wouldn’t have to worry any more.
No I’m fine I told her I said I just had too much water before I went to bed haha and that’s why it’s the third time I’ve gotten up to pee tonight and it’s only two in the morning even though it’s been like that every night for months and months and I was sure she’d noticed but I was ready to say oh yeah you know me I like to stay hydrated but she didn’t press and I didn’t get to say my line and she’s on the computer with her glasses on and the pink pajamas with clouds on them and a too-big sweater like a comfy librarian and goddammit that was sexy goddammit nothing I can do about it anyway but she never believes she’s so sexy so far out of my league I never figured out why she liked me and I knew she could do just fine without me catch any of a million guys better than me in every way if she wasn’t stuck with me better guys who didn’t lie about going to the doctor who had a dick that worked who didn’t feel awkward when she told him that he’s her favorite person who did the dishes who didn’t stay late at work playing minesweeper so he could say how stressed he was at work a guy without a belly like mine or a bald spot or student loans she glanced up at me over the top of her glasses and said she’s looking at my lab results and I saw google search tabs open next to the pdf I sent her my numbers are good she said of course they are I invented them so you’d say that that’s good to hear I said though but what does it mean and she brought up another file and it had my name on it but it said Sr. instead of Jr. and she pointed and said numbers and dates and words and I knew it all but I pretended I didn’t so she explained he was three years younger than me when they found it and they found it early enough for the surgery and the radiation and thank god it was such easy treatment basically routine nowadays such a miracle of modern medicine when they catch it early good thing you’re both good about getting tested high risk genetics your grandpa died from it but your numbers are good so no worries for six months until your next test anyways when was the last time you called your dad I don’t know maybe in August but I texted him lol when he sent that picture you know the one that we didn’t know why it was supposed to be funny like it was just a tree but I texted him lol yeah dad jokes are the worst and she just looked at me and told me mine were even worse that I was just like him but it’s true I already tell people to shut the door because I don’t want to air condition the great outdoors and I have a mason jar full of wood screws with bunged up slots and no clue where it came from any day now I’ll start building model airplanes and taking pictures of trees and dirt and texting them to people and telling people hi hungry I’m dad and she laughed and put her arms around me and whispered that I shouldn’t be too much like him and I know she doesn’t want me to get prostate cancer so I patted her on the head and went back to bed but I stopped at the bathroom first and when I came out I laughed again and said no I’m fine I told her I just forgot that I already went to the bathroom you know how it is my parents trained me to always go to the bathroom before I go to bed or get in the car no matter how recently I went and she just rolled her eyes and to eat all the ice cream in the house yeah because my mom would eat it all if there was any left it would be gone by morning and to cut the frozen pizza exactly in the middle because my brother got to choose his half and she reminded me that he also trained me to not ever give up.
No I’m fine I told her I said I’m just tired and I should probably call my dad in the morning you made me a bit nostalgic you know how it is and she nodded and that’s how it is you know and sent me off toward bed with a pat on the bottom but I could never sleep after getting up at two in the morning so I just laid there like every night and there was the old Mustang we restored the one he drove when he was a wild teenager and a five dollar bill would fill the tank and buy dinner at A&W and a movie and he was so excited to get it finished and it wasn’t pretty like the car shows he liked to go to but it worked and it ran and we drove it to the strip mall where the A&W used to be and the place he ran off the road trying to kiss Mom for the first time and I couldn’t think of anything in my life that I had ever been that genuinely excited about not a car or a house or hunting the biggest buck like uncle Kevin did every fall for months coming in to work late after getting up at four in the morning and sitting in the woods with a bow and leaving work early to sit in the woods again and watch the sun go down then go back to work and then also spend his summers planting different crops that deer would like and it just seems like so much effort but I could only assume that he really enjoyed it but there’s nothing in the world that could make me want to get up that early or spend that much effort at most an okay that’s cool but not something worth spending your life on I didn’t even do anything with the classic car I had I just gave it away and what did my dad even do most of the time besides liking dog pictures on Facebook he was too old to work on cars any more or really do much of anything I remembered that I always judge old people I never wanted to get that old it’s better to die when you’re young and pretty but I’ve never been pretty but it makes me angry when they’re too slow to cross the parking lot even though I never have anywhere to go I’m just going to go home and pour a drink and wait for tomorrow oh god when is the sun going to rise a hint of light peeked through the curtains and I just told myself that the night is almost over and I could stop worrying because it’s almost over.
No I’m fine I told her I said I just had trouble sleeping and that part was true but I said I was thinking about my dad and I guess that part was true also and she asked if it was about how he never stops fighting yeah he had a lot to fight for I guess like getting his kids through college or raising his kids right so they could get married to nice girls like you or doing projects with his kids like model airplanes and the Mustang and spoiling his grandkids but she got real quiet and after a while my coffee was getting cold but I felt like I had to ask.
No I’m fine she told me she said we both have a lot to fight for like and she just sort of stopped talking again and I microwaved my coffee and went to the bathroom again because I have to pee every five minutes and I left for work and I kept telling myself that the week will be over soon and I could stop worrying because it would all be over soon and I wouldn’t have to worry about it I wouldn’t have to worry about anything.
No I’m fine I told her I said it’s just been really busy here at work and you know how it is around tax season with the reports and clients and I just forgot to add it to my phone’s calendar and yeah that’s okay just reschedule it I know how important screening is for a man my age and I know I missed the free screenings but the insurance should pay for it anyway won’t it yes that time works and of course I’ll add it onto my calendar right now now clicky clicky click on the keyboard as I pinched the phone against my shoulder and typed random numbers into Excel and decided that wasn’t random enough and I put in a random number generator but what are the bounds so I pulled up the same pdf I’d been editing the last five years and looked at the normal ranges for cholesterol and liver enzymes and prostate specific antigen and yeah I’d better lower the cholesterol number so it looks better and then my wife will let me buy bacon again and oh sorry yes I have it on my calendar and I’ll see you next week of course thank you very much sorry to be such a bother I’m so forgetful well I’d better forget back to this oh haha I meant get back to this work thanks and goodbye and I can’t forget to change the date when was that appointment I missed she just said it but I didn’t write it down I don’t write anything down and I know my wife has it on the calendar at home and I’ll just tell her I forgot to forward the results and I’ll get to it tomorrow but no the doctor closes at seven and the appointment was after work and they would have called right after but they closed so that’s why they called today so it was yesterday and so I put yesterday’s date on it and attached the fake lab results I just typed up to an email and sent it to the wife and the day is almost over and it’s almost over and then I won’t have to worry about it because it’ll be over and I won’t have to worry any more.
No I’m fine I’ll tell her I’ll say it’s just been really busy at work why change it if it works and you know how it is with the reports and the paperwork and the bullshit and she’ll laugh a sad laugh because it’s all bullshit and why would anyone even pay for someone to do that but it’s my night to cook and I’ll be so late we’ll have to order pizza or just eat chips like slobs and I pulled in the driveway and left my briefcase in the front seat I stood on the porch and cleared my phone history there’s no reason to get a call from the doctor if I’d actually gone and gotten the tests done like I said and I locked my phone and went inside but the lights were dim and she had candles going they were scented candles and she was leaning against the bedroom door in a lacy frilly thing and my stomach tied itself into knots and I smiled but not much and she asked what was wrong so I said it I said no I’m fine I told her it’s just been really busy at work I’m sorry I’m late and she undid my tie and used it to pull me into the bedroom with the candles and the silk sheets and she did that thing I’ve always liked but of course I couldn’t get it up I’m sorry it’s not you you’re sexy of course and she really was but no I’m fine I told her I said it’s just been really stressful at work you know how it is and I hoped she wouldn’t ask about the last dozen times I’d been really stressed at work so I kissed her on the forehead and pulled the vibrator out of the drawer and laid her on the bed and why don’t you take care of yourself while I have a drink and try to relax and we can try again later tonight but I knew she’d fall asleep and she won’t try again tonight so I poured a drink and sat in the kitchen and listened to the buzzing from the other room and there weren’t any chips left but there was still whiskey and that was probably better it was cheaper anyway and at least the whiskey didn’t make me sick so I poured another one and when the ice maker stopped I realized the buzzing was gone and I went into the bedroom and she was asleep on her side of the bed and it was late so I turned off the lights and laid down and drank my whiskey and everything would be okay because the evening would be over soon and I would be asleep it would all be over soon and I wouldn’t have to worry any more.
No I’m fine I told her I said I just had too much water before I went to bed haha and that’s why it’s the third time I’ve gotten up to pee tonight and it’s only two in the morning even though it’s been like that every night for months and months and I was sure she’d noticed but I was ready to say oh yeah you know me I like to stay hydrated but she didn’t press and I didn’t get to say my line and she’s on the computer with her glasses on and the pink pajamas with clouds on them and a too-big sweater like a comfy librarian and goddammit that was sexy goddammit nothing I can do about it anyway but she never believes she’s so sexy so far out of my league I never figured out why she liked me and I knew she could do just fine without me catch any of a million guys better than me in every way if she wasn’t stuck with me better guys who didn’t lie about going to the doctor who had a dick that worked who didn’t feel awkward when she told him that he’s her favorite person who did the dishes who didn’t stay late at work playing minesweeper so he could say how stressed he was at work a guy without a belly like mine or a bald spot or student loans she glanced up at me over the top of her glasses and said she’s looking at my lab results and I saw google search tabs open next to the pdf I sent her my numbers are good she said of course they are I invented them so you’d say that that’s good to hear I said though but what does it mean and she brought up another file and it had my name on it but it said Sr. instead of Jr. and she pointed and said numbers and dates and words and I knew it all but I pretended I didn’t so she explained he was three years younger than me when they found it and they found it early enough for the surgery and the radiation and thank god it was such easy treatment basically routine nowadays such a miracle of modern medicine when they catch it early good thing you’re both good about getting tested high risk genetics your grandpa died from it but your numbers are good so no worries for six months until your next test anyways when was the last time you called your dad I don’t know maybe in August but I texted him lol when he sent that picture you know the one that we didn’t know why it was supposed to be funny like it was just a tree but I texted him lol yeah dad jokes are the worst and she just looked at me and told me mine were even worse that I was just like him but it’s true I already tell people to shut the door because I don’t want to air condition the great outdoors and I have a mason jar full of wood screws with bunged up slots and no clue where it came from any day now I’ll start building model airplanes and taking pictures of trees and dirt and texting them to people and telling people hi hungry I’m dad and she laughed and put her arms around me and whispered that I shouldn’t be too much like him and I know she doesn’t want me to get prostate cancer so I patted her on the head and went back to bed but I stopped at the bathroom first and when I came out I laughed again and said no I’m fine I told her I just forgot that I already went to the bathroom you know how it is my parents trained me to always go to the bathroom before I go to bed or get in the car no matter how recently I went and she just rolled her eyes and to eat all the ice cream in the house yeah because my mom would eat it all if there was any left it would be gone by morning and to cut the frozen pizza exactly in the middle because my brother got to choose his half and she reminded me that he also trained me to not ever give up.
No I’m fine I told her I said I’m just tired and I should probably call my dad in the morning you made me a bit nostalgic you know how it is and she nodded and that’s how it is you know and sent me off toward bed with a pat on the bottom but I could never sleep after getting up at two in the morning so I just laid there like every night and there was the old Mustang we restored the one he drove when he was a wild teenager and a five dollar bill would fill the tank and buy dinner at A&W and a movie and he was so excited to get it finished and it wasn’t pretty like the car shows he liked to go to but it worked and it ran and we drove it to the strip mall where the A&W used to be and the place he ran off the road trying to kiss Mom for the first time and I couldn’t think of anything in my life that I had ever been that genuinely excited about not a car or a house or hunting the biggest buck like uncle Kevin did every fall for months coming in to work late after getting up at four in the morning and sitting in the woods with a bow and leaving work early to sit in the woods again and watch the sun go down then go back to work and then also spend his summers planting different crops that deer would like and it just seems like so much effort but I could only assume that he really enjoyed it but there’s nothing in the world that could make me want to get up that early or spend that much effort at most an okay that’s cool but not something worth spending your life on I didn’t even do anything with the classic car I had I just gave it away and what did my dad even do most of the time besides liking dog pictures on Facebook he was too old to work on cars any more or really do much of anything I remembered that I always judge old people I never wanted to get that old it’s better to die when you’re young and pretty but I’ve never been pretty but it makes me angry when they’re too slow to cross the parking lot even though I never have anywhere to go I’m just going to go home and pour a drink and wait for tomorrow oh god when is the sun going to rise a hint of light peeked through the curtains and I just told myself that the night is almost over and I could stop worrying because it’s almost over.
No I’m fine I told her I said I just had trouble sleeping and that part was true but I said I was thinking about my dad and I guess that part was true also and she asked if it was about how he never stops fighting yeah he had a lot to fight for I guess like getting his kids through college or raising his kids right so they could get married to nice girls like you or doing projects with his kids like model airplanes and the Mustang and spoiling his grandkids but she got real quiet and after a while my coffee was getting cold but I felt like I had to ask.
No I’m fine she told me she said we both have a lot to fight for like and she just sort of stopped talking again and I microwaved my coffee and went to the bathroom again because I have to pee every five minutes and I left for work and I kept telling myself that the week will be over soon and I could stop worrying because it would all be over soon and I wouldn’t have to worry about it I wouldn’t have to worry about anything.
Pics
If this is a joke entry, then no, I'm fine.
If not, here we go.
No I'm fine even after reading this story because I have read so many other things that just run along and carry on sometimes with no particular end in sight but that's okay because sometimes a story does not need to have a proper ending to have an ending you know what I am saying but I should also mention that even despite being a monologue that seems to be more of a man rambling about the troubles of his love life which I admit we are seeing it unnecessarily split apart into several phases that I do not really look far into nor do I have the time and energy to care for mostly because there did not seem to be any beat change in what he is saying whatsoever but also because there was nothing I could really sympathize about this dude save for his relationship problems because despite the fact that I too see those sorts of problems myself you know what I mean but it's just that I don't really see them all converging upon a single person particularly in such an erratic unrealistic and unfocused manner I do find that I too can veer off into unexpected territory when it comes to my train of thought like right now but I digress no instead going back to the story I can say that beyond all the whining and babbling he's doing there does not seem to be much else that the story seems to be going for apart from him talking about his issues which is in of itself fine but one should at least be really selective of the whole thing because if not it just seems long and meandering and really shows just how unfocused the writing here really is I just wish perhaps there was a point being made in the story here apart from being excessive and somewhat irritating to sit down and properly read through but hey we live in a free country well you guys at least my country is not exactly super free but hey it still is a great country you know what I mean anyways I do wish that maybe this has something more to say and I am open minded to think that it probably does but as of right now writing this review I cannot say that I can see it.
Also, runoff sentences and chunky paragraphing.
If not, here we go.
No I'm fine even after reading this story because I have read so many other things that just run along and carry on sometimes with no particular end in sight but that's okay because sometimes a story does not need to have a proper ending to have an ending you know what I am saying but I should also mention that even despite being a monologue that seems to be more of a man rambling about the troubles of his love life which I admit we are seeing it unnecessarily split apart into several phases that I do not really look far into nor do I have the time and energy to care for mostly because there did not seem to be any beat change in what he is saying whatsoever but also because there was nothing I could really sympathize about this dude save for his relationship problems because despite the fact that I too see those sorts of problems myself you know what I mean but it's just that I don't really see them all converging upon a single person particularly in such an erratic unrealistic and unfocused manner I do find that I too can veer off into unexpected territory when it comes to my train of thought like right now but I digress no instead going back to the story I can say that beyond all the whining and babbling he's doing there does not seem to be much else that the story seems to be going for apart from him talking about his issues which is in of itself fine but one should at least be really selective of the whole thing because if not it just seems long and meandering and really shows just how unfocused the writing here really is I just wish perhaps there was a point being made in the story here apart from being excessive and somewhat irritating to sit down and properly read through but hey we live in a free country well you guys at least my country is not exactly super free but hey it still is a great country you know what I mean anyways I do wish that maybe this has something more to say and I am open minded to think that it probably does but as of right now writing this review I cannot say that I can see it.
Also, runoff sentences and chunky paragraphing.
>>WritingSpirit
The story kind of is making a point, but in all that, you didn't discuss that aspect of the story. You're really focused on him having romantic troubles, and that's not the central idea of the story at all, so I can't tell if you missed it. Which may be the author's fault and may not. My take is that this guy has a serious health problem he's hiding from everyone, including his wife, because it's something that can't be treated, has a poor outlook, or that he's refusing treatment for. He may be altering the doctor's reports, or he may be making them up altogether, but his wife isn't seeing the real data.
And the runoff [sic] sentences and chunky paragraphing... yeah, they're there. To me, it's overwhelmingly clear that it's a very deliberate choice. Whether that works or not is up to the reader, and I suspect this will be fairly polarizing, but citing it as a self-explanatory failing is kind of like complaining that a shipping story has shipping in it. If you just don't like shipping on principle, that's fine, but if you think the author's executing something wrong about it, he'd probably like to know what.
I don't mind this story at all, but it survives because of its brevity. I couldn't read a story in this style that was pushing the upper word count limit, just because it requires a lot of close attention, and you're making the reader take on all the work that punctuation and sentence structure normally do. So when you make something more difficult to read, there needs to be a payoff that outweighs it. I'm not sure that's the case here, because I don't think having this in a standard format would make it have any less of an impact. Maybe a little, but it's borderline for me. It's an interesting choice for format, and I do appreciate the bit of variety it lent. It's strong on word choice, characterization, and imagery. It's not likely to wow people, but if you were just trying to see if you could pull off a story using this gimmick, I'd call it a success. It leans more toward working despite its gimmick instead of because of it, but the gimmick is executed well enough that it does have that curiosity factor going for it, at least to me.
The story kind of is making a point, but in all that, you didn't discuss that aspect of the story. You're really focused on him having romantic troubles, and that's not the central idea of the story at all, so I can't tell if you missed it. Which may be the author's fault and may not. My take is that this guy has a serious health problem he's hiding from everyone, including his wife, because it's something that can't be treated, has a poor outlook, or that he's refusing treatment for. He may be altering the doctor's reports, or he may be making them up altogether, but his wife isn't seeing the real data.
And the runoff [sic] sentences and chunky paragraphing... yeah, they're there. To me, it's overwhelmingly clear that it's a very deliberate choice. Whether that works or not is up to the reader, and I suspect this will be fairly polarizing, but citing it as a self-explanatory failing is kind of like complaining that a shipping story has shipping in it. If you just don't like shipping on principle, that's fine, but if you think the author's executing something wrong about it, he'd probably like to know what.
I don't mind this story at all, but it survives because of its brevity. I couldn't read a story in this style that was pushing the upper word count limit, just because it requires a lot of close attention, and you're making the reader take on all the work that punctuation and sentence structure normally do. So when you make something more difficult to read, there needs to be a payoff that outweighs it. I'm not sure that's the case here, because I don't think having this in a standard format would make it have any less of an impact. Maybe a little, but it's borderline for me. It's an interesting choice for format, and I do appreciate the bit of variety it lent. It's strong on word choice, characterization, and imagery. It's not likely to wow people, but if you were just trying to see if you could pull off a story using this gimmick, I'd call it a success. It leans more toward working despite its gimmick instead of because of it, but the gimmick is executed well enough that it does have that curiosity factor going for it, at least to me.
Thanks, I hate it.
(This is a whole lot better than the gimmick would suggest, and I will probably rate it fairly highly but this isn't a story I wanted to read and I think I feel worse for having experienced it)
(This is a whole lot better than the gimmick would suggest, and I will probably rate it fairly highly but this isn't a story I wanted to read and I think I feel worse for having experienced it)
Alternate Title: The Man Who Talked Too Much
I'm left in a difficult position with this story, because on the one hand I think I understand the point to it, but at the same time I hesitate to make a conclusion about the author's intentions.
Let me explain.
This seems to me, rather clearly, about an unhinged man who cannot interact normally with other people, including his loved ones. Instead of seeking help (we never find out what exactly made him like this) he continues to act outwardly as though he doesn't have anything wrong with him, hence the title and recurring phrase.
I'm absolutely positive that No I'm Fine is about mental illness, and the social taboo surrounding it that persists to this day, resulting in many people feeling too ashamed to seek professional assistance. It's a commendable message, although being the immoral asshole that I am I'm not impressed with a story just because it has a "good" message for the kiddies.
And now it's time to acknowledge the big chunky elephant in the room, and why I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken at face value or as a satire of sorts.
I'm gonna put it bluntly, because I think it's important to say this (and also because this is all I have): the whole chunky paragraph tactic is horrid. No matter which way you look at it, this is a slog to read, and it would be even more monstrous if it was any longer than it is now. It's under 3,000 words, but feels like twice that number. Out of curiosity, I took the longest paragraph and copy-pasted it into Microsoft Word. Wanna know what number I got?
738. 738 words in a single paragraph, almost meeting the maximum word count for a minific round.
No, Sir (or Madame), I won't have it. I get what the point of it is, on its surface, but no. Stream-of-consciousness has been used for the past century by great writers and hacks alike as an easy method of conveying mental unrest to the reader. If you want to show that a character's train of thought is spiraling out of control, the easiest way is stream-of-consciousness. It makes sense, then, that a story narrated by a character who's long since gone off the rails would be told like this, but there's no perspective to which we can compare this madness.
In most stories involving stream-of-consciousness, there is a great deal of writing that doesn't fall into that category; even Joyce knew when to quit when he wasn't writing Finnegans Wake. Stream-of-consciousness often takes up only a fraction of any given story that utilizes it, for at least two good reasons, both of which No I'm Fine ignores.
1. Stream-of-consciousness, while intriguing at first, can easily turn into a chore to read, given the lack of punctuation and Jupiter-sized paragraphs, and as the bored housewife said to the horny stallion, "There's such a thing as putting too much in, dear."
2. A character who is mentally stable versus a character who isn't is practically a case of night and day, in terms of how these perspectives are written. You would have less of an idea of what an unstable perspective is like if you've only read a stable one, and presumably the same goes for vice versa.
We're stuck in the protagonist's head the whole time, and are only exposed to a singular state of mind which remains in a singular flow and cadence throughout the story. Apparently the protagonist is always like this, which might have been the author's intent, but I'm not sure, and anyway I hesitate to say it works for me as a story.
This could be taking the piss out of stream-of-consciousness writing when it goes too far, like Faulkner at his worst, but that doesn't change the conclusion that this is far from a fun read.
>>Pascoite I also don't know if this format was chosen out of laziness or creativity, because depending what kind of writer you are this sort of thing would either feel easy as breathing or very deliberate. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say it was a creative choice, if not necessarily a successful one.
I'm left in a difficult position with this story, because on the one hand I think I understand the point to it, but at the same time I hesitate to make a conclusion about the author's intentions.
Let me explain.
This seems to me, rather clearly, about an unhinged man who cannot interact normally with other people, including his loved ones. Instead of seeking help (we never find out what exactly made him like this) he continues to act outwardly as though he doesn't have anything wrong with him, hence the title and recurring phrase.
I'm absolutely positive that No I'm Fine is about mental illness, and the social taboo surrounding it that persists to this day, resulting in many people feeling too ashamed to seek professional assistance. It's a commendable message, although being the immoral asshole that I am I'm not impressed with a story just because it has a "good" message for the kiddies.
And now it's time to acknowledge the big chunky elephant in the room, and why I'm not sure if this is meant to be taken at face value or as a satire of sorts.
I'm gonna put it bluntly, because I think it's important to say this (and also because this is all I have): the whole chunky paragraph tactic is horrid. No matter which way you look at it, this is a slog to read, and it would be even more monstrous if it was any longer than it is now. It's under 3,000 words, but feels like twice that number. Out of curiosity, I took the longest paragraph and copy-pasted it into Microsoft Word. Wanna know what number I got?
738. 738 words in a single paragraph, almost meeting the maximum word count for a minific round.
No, Sir (or Madame), I won't have it. I get what the point of it is, on its surface, but no. Stream-of-consciousness has been used for the past century by great writers and hacks alike as an easy method of conveying mental unrest to the reader. If you want to show that a character's train of thought is spiraling out of control, the easiest way is stream-of-consciousness. It makes sense, then, that a story narrated by a character who's long since gone off the rails would be told like this, but there's no perspective to which we can compare this madness.
In most stories involving stream-of-consciousness, there is a great deal of writing that doesn't fall into that category; even Joyce knew when to quit when he wasn't writing Finnegans Wake. Stream-of-consciousness often takes up only a fraction of any given story that utilizes it, for at least two good reasons, both of which No I'm Fine ignores.
1. Stream-of-consciousness, while intriguing at first, can easily turn into a chore to read, given the lack of punctuation and Jupiter-sized paragraphs, and as the bored housewife said to the horny stallion, "There's such a thing as putting too much in, dear."
2. A character who is mentally stable versus a character who isn't is practically a case of night and day, in terms of how these perspectives are written. You would have less of an idea of what an unstable perspective is like if you've only read a stable one, and presumably the same goes for vice versa.
We're stuck in the protagonist's head the whole time, and are only exposed to a singular state of mind which remains in a singular flow and cadence throughout the story. Apparently the protagonist is always like this, which might have been the author's intent, but I'm not sure, and anyway I hesitate to say it works for me as a story.
This could be taking the piss out of stream-of-consciousness writing when it goes too far, like Faulkner at his worst, but that doesn't change the conclusion that this is far from a fun read.
>>Pascoite I also don't know if this format was chosen out of laziness or creativity, because depending what kind of writer you are this sort of thing would either feel easy as breathing or very deliberate. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say it was a creative choice, if not necessarily a successful one.
Alright, I'm in a better reviewing state of mind than I was before, so I'll be tackling this again with hopefully a lot more grace and respect for the story, as much as I still loathe it.
>>Pascoite
Regarding mental illness (which I'll get to its use in the story in a bit), I was pretty much aware of it from the get go that it's something the author was gunning for the moment I read the title. It's something I've seen and heard enough from other people, myself included, to be acutely certain before reading into this that yes, our narrator will have a mental illness. However, having finished reading it, I don't think the fact that whether or not he had mental illness played an integral role in this story (again, I'll get to it in a bit). So instead, I specifically focused on the relationship problem of the story because, our narrator, and in extension our author, chose to utilize a narrative based on the relationship he was having with his wife. It's evident from the first few words of each paragraph:
The story is really more of a couple wanting to have a child, but the guy can't do so as much as he wants it because he has a genetic condition that involves his prostate. His wife definitely knows about it, but she's not broaching it for fear that he gets emotional over it. From what I could get, he mentions about making an appointment to visit the doctor, about failing to be in the right mood to have sex with his wife, about his wife bringing up his genealogy and then about his own father. His wife definitely wants to help him, but for some reason he's rejecting every single offer that's been brought up by her that could potentially advance the story forward.
Looking at it like this, it's a fairly strong narrative. There's a lot of room for some brilliant character moments, particularly from the wife. And from all the little tidbits I could extract throughout the protagonist's stream of consciousness, he seems to have some proper characterization as well. The problem I have really is that the author seems to have thrown every random offhand comment he could possibly think of to muddy the waters. Sure, one can chalk it up to his mental condition, which again, I'll get to in a bit, but I think with this story, there's a lot of moments of blocking that impedes any possible poignant plot progression the story could've had. You could say that it's the author's intent to write that, but that's when I start to question the usage of mental illness in this story.
I agree with >>No_Raisin wholeheartedly about the portrayal of mental illness, but that's considering if the crux of the narrative really is mental illness in the first place. If it's intended to be satirical, sure, but it's horrendously crafted satire. It's cheap and doesn't even attempt to make a statement other than perhaps flipping a bird on those with mental conditions, which is not really a stance anyone should be taking.
Personally, I think the usage of mental illness, from how I see it being implemented, was shoehorned in as a gimmick and a convenient explanation as to why the narrative ultimately doesn't go anywhere in the end. When I pick apart the narrative, I can tell that our narrator has a medical condition. I can tell it's causing some issues with him having a child with his wife. What I can't figure out, however is how his insecurities in that aspect of his life would draw him to make those decisions in the first place.
You can say 'mental illness' but with how rampant his irregular decision-making was throughout the story, it's coming off to me as not really an explanation and more of an excuse. I'm not even sure if it's supposed to be commenting on mental illness as a whole, as it comes across to me that it's not even attempting to make a statement about it and is just there for sake of the story. I'm coming away thinking that either a) the author's using it as a gimmick alongside the whole brick wall format, or b) the author never properly looked into how mental illness was written before.
If it's scenario B, I should mention that mental illness is more than just being in denial of something.
If it's scenario A, then I honestly have no idea why I wasted my time reading this.
As for the "runoff sentences and chunky paragraphing" issue I had, the point I'm making is that the effect it has to the overall story is the same as when I emulate the exact same style in my initial review, in that it's pointless, it's bizarre, there's no good reason for anyone to do such a thing as much as you'd like to believe otherwise and it doesn't serve anything to aid with the message other than to infuriate all those reading this.
TL;DR you had a strong narrative in your hands, yet whatever abundant potential that was there was all wasted away on mental illness being used as a shortcut and a creative decision that is just objectively horrendous, no matter how you look at it.
Full-on abstain.
>>Pascoite
Regarding mental illness (which I'll get to its use in the story in a bit), I was pretty much aware of it from the get go that it's something the author was gunning for the moment I read the title. It's something I've seen and heard enough from other people, myself included, to be acutely certain before reading into this that yes, our narrator will have a mental illness. However, having finished reading it, I don't think the fact that whether or not he had mental illness played an integral role in this story (again, I'll get to it in a bit). So instead, I specifically focused on the relationship problem of the story because, our narrator, and in extension our author, chose to utilize a narrative based on the relationship he was having with his wife. It's evident from the first few words of each paragraph:
No I’m fine I’ll tell / I told her
The story is really more of a couple wanting to have a child, but the guy can't do so as much as he wants it because he has a genetic condition that involves his prostate. His wife definitely knows about it, but she's not broaching it for fear that he gets emotional over it. From what I could get, he mentions about making an appointment to visit the doctor, about failing to be in the right mood to have sex with his wife, about his wife bringing up his genealogy and then about his own father. His wife definitely wants to help him, but for some reason he's rejecting every single offer that's been brought up by her that could potentially advance the story forward.
Looking at it like this, it's a fairly strong narrative. There's a lot of room for some brilliant character moments, particularly from the wife. And from all the little tidbits I could extract throughout the protagonist's stream of consciousness, he seems to have some proper characterization as well. The problem I have really is that the author seems to have thrown every random offhand comment he could possibly think of to muddy the waters. Sure, one can chalk it up to his mental condition, which again, I'll get to in a bit, but I think with this story, there's a lot of moments of blocking that impedes any possible poignant plot progression the story could've had. You could say that it's the author's intent to write that, but that's when I start to question the usage of mental illness in this story.
I agree with >>No_Raisin wholeheartedly about the portrayal of mental illness, but that's considering if the crux of the narrative really is mental illness in the first place. If it's intended to be satirical, sure, but it's horrendously crafted satire. It's cheap and doesn't even attempt to make a statement other than perhaps flipping a bird on those with mental conditions, which is not really a stance anyone should be taking.
Personally, I think the usage of mental illness, from how I see it being implemented, was shoehorned in as a gimmick and a convenient explanation as to why the narrative ultimately doesn't go anywhere in the end. When I pick apart the narrative, I can tell that our narrator has a medical condition. I can tell it's causing some issues with him having a child with his wife. What I can't figure out, however is how his insecurities in that aspect of his life would draw him to make those decisions in the first place.
You can say 'mental illness' but with how rampant his irregular decision-making was throughout the story, it's coming off to me as not really an explanation and more of an excuse. I'm not even sure if it's supposed to be commenting on mental illness as a whole, as it comes across to me that it's not even attempting to make a statement about it and is just there for sake of the story. I'm coming away thinking that either a) the author's using it as a gimmick alongside the whole brick wall format, or b) the author never properly looked into how mental illness was written before.
If it's scenario B, I should mention that mental illness is more than just being in denial of something.
If it's scenario A, then I honestly have no idea why I wasted my time reading this.
As for the "runoff sentences and chunky paragraphing" issue I had, the point I'm making is that the effect it has to the overall story is the same as when I emulate the exact same style in my initial review, in that it's pointless, it's bizarre, there's no good reason for anyone to do such a thing as much as you'd like to believe otherwise and it doesn't serve anything to aid with the message other than to infuriate all those reading this.
TL;DR you had a strong narrative in your hands, yet whatever abundant potential that was there was all wasted away on mental illness being used as a shortcut and a creative decision that is just objectively horrendous, no matter how you look at it.
Full-on abstain.
Well, it looks like we have our controversial entry for the round.
I think I'll start by saying what I think this story is about, since there seems to be a lot of different opinions on that. To me, this is essentially a story about a depressed man committing suicide via prostate cancer. The constant repetition of "It will be over soon" and "I won't have to worry about it" sure reads like he's expecting to die.
And then you get to this line, buried in the middle of a paragraph:
He's dying, and he doesn't really feel too strongly about being alive.
I'm not going to comment on the style, there are enough other people doing that.
The issue I have is that you spend a lot of time and words talking about something that is going to happen "soon" but never show it. He is in the exact same situation at the end as at the beginning. That especially irks me because the whole time you're building up tension by having him lie about and hide his illness. Why do that if you are never going to release it. You're like a paragraph short of having a plot; it seems clear enough that he can't hide the lit forever, so just have him get caught. A sentence or two of him keeling over at work is all you need. I feel like you've shown us two trains racing at each other, and then cut away right before the crash.
This would be a lot stronger with an ending.
I think I'll start by saying what I think this story is about, since there seems to be a lot of different opinions on that. To me, this is essentially a story about a depressed man committing suicide via prostate cancer. The constant repetition of "It will be over soon" and "I won't have to worry about it" sure reads like he's expecting to die.
And then you get to this line, buried in the middle of a paragraph:
[...]and the place he ran off the road trying to kiss Mom for the first time and I couldn’t think of anything in my life that I had ever been that genuinely excited about not a car or a house[...]
He's dying, and he doesn't really feel too strongly about being alive.
I'm not going to comment on the style, there are enough other people doing that.
The issue I have is that you spend a lot of time and words talking about something that is going to happen "soon" but never show it. He is in the exact same situation at the end as at the beginning. That especially irks me because the whole time you're building up tension by having him lie about and hide his illness. Why do that if you are never going to release it. You're like a paragraph short of having a plot; it seems clear enough that he can't hide the lit forever, so just have him get caught. A sentence or two of him keeling over at work is all you need. I feel like you've shown us two trains racing at each other, and then cut away right before the crash.
This would be a lot stronger with an ending.
I'm pretty sure there's some deep meaning in this story but it'd be great to find it, but at some point I realised that rather than reading I was finding random phrases in each paragraph trying to read the future from them, in a manner akin to that "grab the closest book, open it on page 52 and the third sentence describes your love life" game. Unfortunately for me, the phrase I got was "the doctor who had a dick that worked". I'm not sure what to make of that...
>sees title
>"Heh, missing a comma there, friend"
>clicks
>"Oh CHRIST"
I read this story hours ago. I've since completed my work day, spoken to people and clients, gone home, run some errands, picked up dinner and ate it. And godamnit, I'm still thinking about this story. It's invaded me. It's challenged me. I love it.
And for the record, my reading lines up completely with Axuuy's. The poor man has realized where he is in life, how he doesn't like it and can't relate to anyone around him, and he has found a way out. A terrible one, but one all the same. I don't think this is making a commentary on mental health or social reclusion or anything like that; I think we're seeing these things because the man's situation and upbringing force him to be socially reclusive and have poor mental health (and think schizophrenically). It fits his character, not the author's message. At least in my opinion.
I mean sometimes I think in sentences like this. Does that make me a commentary on mental health? Don't answer that.
Like it or not, I thought this story was very self-aware about what it was doing. As people are pointing out, it would not have worked at all if it was very much longer (or even a little bit longer), because we can only take so much squinting. But credit where it's due, I don't think that's down to luck. I think the author made this story exactly as long as it needed to be. And hey, if different people would have liked a little bit longer or a little bit shorter, then I won the fucking lottery, because I thought it was just right. You Goldilocks'd it, Author.
But even putting aside the length, this type of story lives or dies on what's being said. Make too much of this mess any way boring, or God forbid repetitive, and every single reader is gonna wonder what the hell the extra effort is for. Truly, the sentences that tripped me up were the ones that sort of fold back on themselves and repeat. I won’t have to worry about it about any of it because it will be over and I won’t have to worry won’t have to worry about any of it. I might suggest tightening up those lines because they're the ones I'm reading a few times before advancing. Everything else, though, it's not boring or repetitive, in fact it's moving at a blistering pace, forcing me to take my own breathers instead of waiting for a full stop.
It's weird, but for the length you chose, it worked. And you managed to fit so much about this poor man's married life and efforts at concealing his illness and all the ways his past has shaped him—the memories that stick out to him—the people he's known and unable to connect with. I know so much about him now. About why he's doing what he's doing.
I think that's what I like most about this. It's so much story packed so close together and I get so much at once. The degree of difficulty of the style is there too, and I think edit: I think I've forgotten how I wanted to end this paragraph.
Now, I do want to say, I'm treating this story with the same litmus tests that I did The Crystal Palace. Namely, does this style add anything to the story, and would it be better if conventional storytelling was used? To the first part, yes. As I've discussed. To the second part... I honestly don't think so. Does that mean this story is surviving on the gimmick alone? Possibly, but I don't have the two scenarios to choose from, so who knows? All I know is that I've never read something like this before, and I thought it was interesting, and hope I never, ever read something similar again. Yes, you heard that right, Writeoffers. NOBODY EVER DO THIS AGAIN.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you very much for writing this, Author. I will throw you at the top of my slate and defend you as much as I can, but if we're being honest, I'm not sure this will do too well. And it's funny, normally when I see my opinion diverging from those of others, I usually wonder if we even read the same story. But here I easily see why everyone has reacted in their own ways. We all definitely read the same story, we just interpreted it differently. And that's art. And that's beauitful.
*throws confetti*
I think this story was worthwhile.
I find myself:
Agreeing with pretty much all of the goods and bads discussed above, but since I always approach these Writeoffs as opportunities to get comments on the first draft of a story so I can make it better before I either post it on Fimfiction or start submitting it to the various short story markets, my suggestion here is entirely practical. How about letting the other characters' dialogue be all nicely punctuated in separate paragraphs from the narrator's stream of consciousness? It'd still give us the idea of his brain running at a million miles per hour but would also give us islands of respite to breathe on before plunging back in.
Just a thought...
Mike
Agreeing with pretty much all of the goods and bads discussed above, but since I always approach these Writeoffs as opportunities to get comments on the first draft of a story so I can make it better before I either post it on Fimfiction or start submitting it to the various short story markets, my suggestion here is entirely practical. How about letting the other characters' dialogue be all nicely punctuated in separate paragraphs from the narrator's stream of consciousness? It'd still give us the idea of his brain running at a million miles per hour but would also give us islands of respite to breathe on before plunging back in.
Just a thought...
Mike