When I re-read my last meditation I realized that I had taken my mediation in a completely different direction than I had wanted to. I got caught up in the story aspect of what I was writing about and feel as though I handed in just that; a story. I want to revise my work so that it is an essay reporting on the different seasons we experience while living in NYC and also the beauty that each season has to offer. Here is a small sample, I’d appreciate any feed back on the direction I want to take my new mediation.
Thanks!
I fell in love with the summer because of the sense of freedom it gave me. All the best parties happen to take place during the summer, the backyard parties—city dwellers considering small, grassless, open spaces surrounded by apartment buildings backyards—film festivals and street fairs take place during the summer. All the girls that like to wear hardly anything come out during the summer; Mr. Softee comes out during the summer! How any one could not fall in love with summer in the city is beyond me.
For the older crowd there’s a special treat during the summer. Rooftop drinking. There’s an undescribable feeling about getting drunk on a rooftop with a breath taking view of the NYC skyline. Sure it seems dangerous; intoxicating oneself a top a building several feet high in the air, but to my knowledge no one’s ever had that last jaggerbomb it would take to commit an act to justify this belief.
on May 7th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Hi Richard, just a couple suggestions: I think that if you talk about summer maybe you could describe the hot subways full of people, the barbeques in Queens and Long Island houses(which cannot be done in Manhattan); If you talk about winter maybe you could say something about the busy Macy’s on 34th before Christmasand the “human traffic” at this time of the year, you know, you could add things that are very typical and common to NYC. When you talk about spring, you definitely should say something about all the college kids getting ready for the big spring break vacations. I also think that you should change the sentence wwhere you are using the dashes, remember we talked that if we would take out what is in between the dashes the sentence should make sense. Good luck with your meditation!
on May 8th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I’m going to apologize in advance. Sorry.
Those paragraphs feel very clumsy. I stumbled a lot trying to read it. It doesn’t flow very well.
For example: Sure it seems dangerous; intoxicating oneself a top a building several feet high in the air, but to my knowledge no one’s ever had that last jaggerbomb it would take to commit an act to justify this belief.
Maybe you should consider breaking this down a bit. It’s too long. The sentence after the semi-colon is grammatically incorrect. And I see that you’re looking for other ways to say rooftop so you don’t sound redundant but “a top a building” sounds so odd – but maybe that’s just me. Also, “several feet high in the air” is verbose for no reason. You can just say “several feet high.”
Oksana is right about that sentence with the dashes. You should consider changing that.
The constant use of “during the summer” seems like too much. For me, it’s annoying and doesn’t add anything to the expose. It doesn’t help to drive any point home or create any imagery for me. I think imagery is actually what you’re missing and you NEED it for an essay like this. You need the reader to feel like they’re in NYC in the summer even if they’re reading it in the cold of winter in Alaska.
I like this: “the backyard parties—city dwellers considering small, grassless, open spaces surrounded by apartment buildings.” It was my favorite sentence out of the two paragraphs. You’re giving details for the reader to actually envision what you’re talking about. Try to talk about the vendors at the fair, where the fairs are, the things you purchased and talk about the relief from the heat you got from Mr. Softee. Stop talking about it like people are just going to “get it.” Act like we know absolutely nothing about NY in the summer and go from there.
on May 10th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
thanks for the feedback, very helpful!