Altogether quite an imaginative story, and one that I never expected anyone to actually write. But what the heck, I googled “robot driving instructor” for the heck of it, and was pleasantly surprised.

Now how in the heck do we get rid of all these extra spam posts about medications (#11-31)? Those low-life marketing losers will try anything to peddle their cheesy wares.

-Lorin

I do want to try to mix things up, stylisticly. There’s nothing I fear more than stagnation. It’s something I’ll keep in mind when I write more next week.

I have another story in mind, probably for this weekend. It will have a magician, I think. I like magic.

About your tense changes: you used them well here — not as well as The Light and the Heat (God, I hope this thing supports HTML), but definitely among the top 3.

But I think, though, that we’ve already established that you can control tense towards your advantage. Your tense change in the previous story, Snowblind is something I’d question, just like your friend Roger did. “But a bitter wind strikes once more” was a bit too jarring in my mind. Perhaps a bit too contrived. I dunno. I’d like to see you try manipulating something other than tense consciously.

If I could request to see you stretch your prowess with a particular kind of literary device, I’d want to see you try messing with cadence. You already do it naturally, what with your

Sentences that stand alone as single paragraphs.

But I’d like to see you explore other ways of messing with the gait or beat of your stories. Something to think about.

OK, that’s enough out of me. Sorry for spamming this little box.

And Matt, you’re still taking requests? For something entirely based on crap humor, you should write something called ‘Mr. Fantastic and His Ten Spanish Wives!’ because I’ve always wanted to read something with that title.

And we need to organise STATIONS: Part Deux.

I really appreciate you writing so much. You always were my favourite critic. I’m a little surprised that you liked the beginning so much, as I always hate my own introductions. They always come off as forced to me.

I really need to stop playing with tense changes, I think. Even in a story like this, where it makes a lot of sense to be loose with tense, I’m not sure it has any sort of positive effect on the story. If anyone has any comments on that, I’d appreciate it.

This whole story was a very unconcious exercise. I just wrote until it was done. I think there are a lot of weak moments in there (though I’m a big fan of the paragraph with the roses!), but I’m happy with the end result.

Please don’t punch me in the arm. I’m weak.

Please note that, while this piece of fiction is dedicated to one Matt Rock, it is no way intended to insinuate that he was, or is, a rapist. He is, in fact, a nice guy! Funny, too! And if Matt Rock should receive any flak for being associated with this unrelated and FICTICIOUS Steve character, please be advised it’s all Matt Elliott’s fault. Thanks.

Moving along, man, I like this new take on depressing thoughts, Matt — I’d say it’s a breath of fresh air from the regular gamut of depressing thoughts expressed here, except that this story had Rape in it. So yeah. Creative.

I’d say the part that works the best for me is the beginning — I must say your imagery has always been potent, and the way you described Steve and Pie walking through the stars was actually quite beautiful in my mind’s eye. I’ll be replaying that moment over and over in my mind to erase the RAPE part from my memory.

It worked for me because of the interesting form your beginning paragraphs took. The imagery itself is pretty complex, as there’s a lot of movement, and there’s a freaking PIE flying around, and that’s sure to make people go “What the hell?” But you’ll notice that each of those first paragraphs ended with a very very VERY short sentence: the paragraph where he talks about how Steve is moving through the stars ends with “He moved with grace”; the next paragraph in which he talks about where Steve is going ends in “He was going back in time.” So, yeah, he lets the images run wild in each paragraph, but then ties them down at the end, which is pretty sweet. I’m just going to replay that one moment in the piece over and over in my mind while Matt tells you all of that was unintentional and all part of his natural style. And don’t be afraid to let your rage and jealousy get the best of you — if anyone feels like punching him in the arm, after this piece, give him one for me too.

If you’re still taking requests, I’d like to suggest one — if anyone else feels like taking it up, please feel free: That one moment in your piece that I just talked about, that makes me want to see what you can do when you’re JUST writing about a very minute timeframe. In light of this, I’d like to see a piece about one second you remember. I don’t want something that is about something that lasted two seconds or something. Write about the most memorable second of your life (keep it PG-13 — I have to be able to sleep at night. Well, OK, maybe R if it’s TASTEFUL). It’s interesting, because not a lot of things can be said in a second, and yet a lot of things can. So yeah. If you will.

Glad you liked it, though!