ILB writing workshop

And -- Aw heck, I'll put up a nonfiction example too (first ten other comers are still freebies, I'll quit now unless nobody bites):

finishedness: -1 (these few graphs aren't even coherent yet, and the "first draft" is now mostly quotes typed in from listening to the album in question while drunk on red wine)

After dying in such infamy that his two sons had to live under false surnames, what gifts and lessons did Oscar Wilde leave for later writers?

Woo. You’d need the cranium of Jeeves -- the fish-guzzling valet created by 20th-century comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse -- to tackle that. Or perhaps you could skate by on the youthful, aristocratic ignorance of peril so wittily parlayed into social criticism by the antiheroes of Saki -- a dandified short-story master and more obvious disciple to Wilde. TK ANOTHER EXAMPLE. You could even rely on the everyone’s-an-18-year-old-to-me hubris of the professorly types brought to life by Kingsley Amis, David Lodge, Julian Barnes, and other academic novelists, shlumpier in appearance but similar in attitude to Wilde’s condescending-father figures, the [from D.G.] and Erskines. Such profly combination of hubris and real expertise has been called upon enough times, in fiction and real life, in books and right in front of my sleeping corpse in a classroom, to scare off a thousand mercenaries of my variety. Though the humorless teacup tragedies that university litfic presses can’t seem to get down the gullets of the Stateside public make you “[Wilde quote for wonder?]”, one then looks at Anglophones overseas and says to oneself, “more than you can ever comprehend, mousebrain.”

So, being human, I’ll pick a – hopefully – smaller field: what the bard of Reading Gaol did for bedroom pop. Yeah, maybe it only looks safer because there aren’t as many bodies strewn on it, but any grave’s better than a mass trench. And I’ve picked a screamingly obvious steed to ride in on: Craig Simmons, keyboardist for Electrosquad, forsake the bittersweet Australian synthpop outfit for an indie-inflected solo project called Space March last year and named one of the songs on its eponymous debut “Dorian Grey.”

But, as Jeeves’s young master Wooster might say, whoah there, Simmons. You’re already bearing me toward the hospital, and the enemy doesn’t even know where the battle is yet.

Snif.

Oh well.

My email is correct after you de-spam-proof it.

Finishedness: 4

And then the angels carry him away

The end of the world was a stony beach where he roved naked, beyond the pull of the tide. Footing was uneven, so his knees kept knocking against one another. Every time he shot out an arm to balance himself the medical bracelet slid along the parallel scars on his wrist, as a reminder, but instead he listened for the waves, susurrus caresses, along the shore, softer than her hair. Like angels singing to him. All the time left in the world, he said to the angels. Engulfed into the swelling waters – the cold at first crushed a heavy ache into his bones, but then like the prick of a needle, it gave away to numbness – he said goodbye having set her free, but in turn bound himself to the sea.

The bus bumped across the road with the window rattling against his head, a sound of harsh coughing glass like cackling. It gave him a headache. Everyone stared out of the corners of their eyes at his wrists, so at the next stop, he left and walked the remaining way to the beach.

When his eyelids snapped open like a porcelain doll’s, she was by his side, half seated, half sprawled onto the bed, a hand resting on his chest. The fluorescent light above him cut high shadows across his face, carving out his cheeks while his eyes sank into black pools. He was so pale his head was just a shadow on the pillow. Fresh bandages bound each wrist, and against the white hospital sheets, he looked like an amputee. She barely recognized him.