![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Brigit's Flame: October Week 2 ("navel")
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
What would make this navel any different from the ones nobody wants to see?
Some sassy in-your-face rant?
A heap of peeling sticky notes?
A little brown girl and a little white boy playing with bugs in the dirt, running like wolves and roaring into the sky?
Belly button lint in the form of post-its, spilling out over the desk, collecting gunk in the bottom of my purse, stuck together like the layers of an onion.
The pain and confusion of not being able to trust your own mind. Of having your muse get a sudden case of stage fright in the one moment she needs to sing loud and clear. Of curling up beside your patient lover, pen in hand, and when he leans down to nibble your arm, shrieking and hitting him. Freezing in terror at what you've done. Trying to explain in your best calm voice, through helpless tears, “No, no, it's okay. I didn't mean to hurt you.” Words failing. Hurt recoiling. I'm just trying to teach myself it's okay to come out and play.
I'll count on the stickies instead. Gather them into an unceremonious pile and meticulously peel them apart one by one:
People who live in glass houses shouldn't walk around naked.
People who want to look tough shouldn't pretend to be dragons.
Not even fear. Fear could be fought, faced down with a gaze willing to take the consequences, lasted out like an ocean storm. I could take manual control of the hand with the pen and force it to scrawl words on the page, any words, freewriting until the spell broke. But this is not fear, it is nothing....
The internet is a fishbowl full of navels. Little fleshy bundles floating in a magnifying sea, trailing bits of umbilical cord. Some haven't been washed in years. Some are pierced. Some sag in tattooed rolls of postpartum fat. Stare at yours long enough and everyone else will stare too.
People who live in internet fishbowls shouldn't walk around naked.
Edit
My first read through and I forgot I was supposed to be editing, dragged in by the flow of consciousness and the psychedelic feel of it all.
My second read through consisted of "How the Bleep am I supposed to edit this?"
Lets give the third read through a try...
Alright, lets start with my love of the quote. It is very fitting with the piece you have written. I also love how it is so imaginative and visual. It felt a bit like a few of the Beetles songs with the images and associations.
Some suggestions: I'd say take these or leave these, they are just an attempt at giving a critique to something that baffles me as to how to go about doing so.
Repetition: It might be fun to play around with repeating some of your single lines again further down the piece. Especially the first one.
Organization: I wonder if the organization of the first few lines is at it's optimum level. Especially line two, because it keys us into the fact that this might be more a rant (or at least stream of consciousness) than anything else. For example: (and please oh please don't think that this is the only way, or even that I think this is better than the way you had it, it's just an example of what I meant by switching some things around.)
What would make this navel any different from the ones nobody wants to see?
A little brown girl and a little white boy playing with bugs in the dirt, running like wolves and roaring into the sky?
Some sassy in-your-face rant?
A heap of peeling sticky notes?
Belly button lint in the form of post-its, spilling out over the desk, collecting gunk in the bottom of my purse, stuck together like the layers of an onion.
But all in all I think the piece works without any changes, which makes it very hard to edit. ^.^
Re: Edit
I realized after posting it that it would probably be a really difficult piece to edit.
I actually like the way you reorganized the first few lines. I think that's one of the weaker parts of the piece, but I couldn't figure out how to order the peeling-sticky-note bits.
I guess what I wonder in terms of editing is how to flesh it out and make it more vivid. It may "work without any changes", but it nonetheless wasn't particularly popular in the vote, and I'm not really sure why. I wanted to give people a sense of unease and get them to question themselves. Also to communicate the intensity of an experience which doesn't, on the surface, seem particularly complicated or unusual (not knowing what to write).
Anyway thanks for making a stab at an edit despite not knowing what to say. :)
Re: Edit
I think maybe the masses prefer something less ranty? Who knows. I know mine did less than well in the polls too. Unfortunately I've been too busy to read much of the competition... so I'm not sure what they are doing so differently.