Metaverses colliding. I felt like I was walking through that parking lot right next to Scar -- as I am sure Ruby was, ultimately. Beautiful, Sandy. Thank you for sharing your gift with us.
This is gorgeous. Haunting, atmospheric, suffocating. Even though I’m miles from a parking lot, I was right there, stepping from halo to halo with Ruby.
So many reasons I enjoyed this. Love all the references, but also all brought together in a way that created such a fun, surreal story tied together with great writing. I'm going to go back and listen & read a couple of times.
Send it, the editor in me says this is print ready, and I definitely found my easter egg even though it was telegraphed by a Texas mile. Bravo. Out-fucking-standing (this is the highest praise I ever give a piece of prose by the way.) You told me in a comment earlier lit isn't your first house. I'm here to tell you people should know your name for your words.
I have not listened to your audio recording yet but at some point during the read though my on board music library began filling in a soundtrack in the form of DJ Food's The Ageing Young Rebel feat. Ken Nordine. https://youtu.be/CqrrWC7cr40
In unrelated news, the small child hiding at the bottom of my mind cellar is desperate to know if the dog is going to be okay.
Wow… the sound just vaguely reminds me of what Jon T gave me for sound! Yeah Nordine! Don’t worry, the dog will be fine… he had a rough night but he will find a new home with a good family that understands dogs better in a few days.
this is excellent. here is why. one the language is gorgeous and evocative. But to be honest, evocative language is the most comment valuable asset I notice among the good fiction writers on Substack. I even notice sometimes they are too distracted by making every sentence so gorgeous they forget about the other facets of the story. That is not what Sandy does here. The characters jump off the page. A lot of stories on here don't have one character that feel real, this has two characters that live with you while you are reading the story like actual people. You want to argue with them, you dislike them, you change your opinion about them. The structure of this piece is incredible. Also making this long of a second person piece feel like a first person piece is incredible. I don't think it leaves the second person the whole time. which is also form matching content because its so much about the relationship between the sisters, the you feels like her talking to her sister and the sister talking to her at the same time. The story uses time and space like a pro. The narrator is clearly aware that the story is at one level taking place in a specific time period of this drunk and grieving sister walking to her car in a parking lot, while also picking specific moments to create another time period of the story, flashbacks of the sister's relationship. Look for each beat where the narrator directs you into a flashback and you will see quality and skill at work. Plot. Shit....most of yall couldn't find a plot in yall story to save your life. There are two plots at work here. Will the narrator make it back to her car safely and will Neptune be alive and will she make it home alive? (drunk driving anyone? Shit. everyone drinks and drives in LA...do we know where the story is set, i can't remember now. it didn't seem to matter.) On a deeper level, will she find a way to survive her grief at the loss of her sibling? Plot people. Do it for the plot people. One interesting thing. We don't get any answers to our plot but somehow our narrator feels like she is in a different place when she reaches her car. And that's the change. Maybe we could have found something tangible to express this change in her and maybe i missed it, but i know the narrator does not feel the same at the end of the story as she did at the start. overall great work. This is certainly one of the best fiction pieces I have read on Substack to date.
Now THAT is a response! Andrew your reading is so deep. You didn’t just give me a pat on the back and a ‘go get em tiger’… you gave me a total read—and you got it. Every word and every image. First of all, thank you, and second of all, thank you.
Damn this feels LAYERED. I’m glad you sent this because I was taken back by how good the second person writing is here. It adds to the effect that we feel on top of adding character layers that we can connect to as WELL. Dope shit and I neeed to read more of your work. This was like if I put on some goggles to live through this piece.
I really appreciate this commentary! It sounds like you went right where I wanted you to go. I indeed wanted us inside the narrator and to live through her walk into darkness. Thank you!
Metaverses colliding. I felt like I was walking through that parking lot right next to Scar -- as I am sure Ruby was, ultimately. Beautiful, Sandy. Thank you for sharing your gift with us.
I love this. I hope you felt how many times I winked and elbowed you in this piece! I feel like our two manuscripts are somehow arm locked.
Good tight writing with a poetic cadence you really hear with the audio.
This is gorgeous. Haunting, atmospheric, suffocating. Even though I’m miles from a parking lot, I was right there, stepping from halo to halo with Ruby.
So many reasons I enjoyed this. Love all the references, but also all brought together in a way that created such a fun, surreal story tied together with great writing. I'm going to go back and listen & read a couple of times.
Did you find your egg?
I did indeed! "In fear, we learned to be alive. Wasn’t that a line from one of her shows?" :)
You found it!
Wonderful
Send it, the editor in me says this is print ready, and I definitely found my easter egg even though it was telegraphed by a Texas mile. Bravo. Out-fucking-standing (this is the highest praise I ever give a piece of prose by the way.) You told me in a comment earlier lit isn't your first house. I'm here to tell you people should know your name for your words.
Thank you.
Sum Flux is goin' places.
I have not listened to your audio recording yet but at some point during the read though my on board music library began filling in a soundtrack in the form of DJ Food's The Ageing Young Rebel feat. Ken Nordine. https://youtu.be/CqrrWC7cr40
In unrelated news, the small child hiding at the bottom of my mind cellar is desperate to know if the dog is going to be okay.
Wow… the sound just vaguely reminds me of what Jon T gave me for sound! Yeah Nordine! Don’t worry, the dog will be fine… he had a rough night but he will find a new home with a good family that understands dogs better in a few days.
Wow…all I can say is my hand was literally reaching for a page to turn so I could keep reading.
Were you one of the subscribers who didn’t get the original post? That makes me crazy!!!
No, I didn’t get the original post in my Substack inbox.
"She’s gone. There won’t be a 'one last time.; But you can do this, you can get through this. You were always the strong one."
Yeah but, what if I wasn't.
this is excellent. here is why. one the language is gorgeous and evocative. But to be honest, evocative language is the most comment valuable asset I notice among the good fiction writers on Substack. I even notice sometimes they are too distracted by making every sentence so gorgeous they forget about the other facets of the story. That is not what Sandy does here. The characters jump off the page. A lot of stories on here don't have one character that feel real, this has two characters that live with you while you are reading the story like actual people. You want to argue with them, you dislike them, you change your opinion about them. The structure of this piece is incredible. Also making this long of a second person piece feel like a first person piece is incredible. I don't think it leaves the second person the whole time. which is also form matching content because its so much about the relationship between the sisters, the you feels like her talking to her sister and the sister talking to her at the same time. The story uses time and space like a pro. The narrator is clearly aware that the story is at one level taking place in a specific time period of this drunk and grieving sister walking to her car in a parking lot, while also picking specific moments to create another time period of the story, flashbacks of the sister's relationship. Look for each beat where the narrator directs you into a flashback and you will see quality and skill at work. Plot. Shit....most of yall couldn't find a plot in yall story to save your life. There are two plots at work here. Will the narrator make it back to her car safely and will Neptune be alive and will she make it home alive? (drunk driving anyone? Shit. everyone drinks and drives in LA...do we know where the story is set, i can't remember now. it didn't seem to matter.) On a deeper level, will she find a way to survive her grief at the loss of her sibling? Plot people. Do it for the plot people. One interesting thing. We don't get any answers to our plot but somehow our narrator feels like she is in a different place when she reaches her car. And that's the change. Maybe we could have found something tangible to express this change in her and maybe i missed it, but i know the narrator does not feel the same at the end of the story as she did at the start. overall great work. This is certainly one of the best fiction pieces I have read on Substack to date.
Now THAT is a response! Andrew your reading is so deep. You didn’t just give me a pat on the back and a ‘go get em tiger’… you gave me a total read—and you got it. Every word and every image. First of all, thank you, and second of all, thank you.
Damn this feels LAYERED. I’m glad you sent this because I was taken back by how good the second person writing is here. It adds to the effect that we feel on top of adding character layers that we can connect to as WELL. Dope shit and I neeed to read more of your work. This was like if I put on some goggles to live through this piece.
I really appreciate this commentary! It sounds like you went right where I wanted you to go. I indeed wanted us inside the narrator and to live through her walk into darkness. Thank you!
Quiet grief masterclass. Every sentence calibrated. Structure is sacred geometry.
Reread 7 times. (check)