Sharing Work

So, picking up where I left off yesterday.
Yesterday evening, an author came and read us some of her poetry. I bought one of her During the retreat, I started thinking about one of my "future stories." There's a scene in it that I've been planning for a while, and since I was inspired, I wrote it yesterday and read it to the group. I'm not actually sure that I've ever posted about it on my blog. So I guess I'll give a quick summary.
There's this girl named Flori who's been ill all her life. She loves flowers, so every spare inch of her room where she spends most of her time is filled with vases and pots of flowers. And there's a friend of hers who hangs out with her. He doesn't have a real name yet, but his temporary name (for my pilot chapter) was Tyler. That's far too close to Tyra though, so it's gotta go.
But I wrote a scene where Tyler walks into Flori's house and finds her room and all the flowers completely devastated, and Flori is missing.
I ended on sort of a cliffhanger note,, and when I stopped, everyone remained staring at me. It took them several seconds to realize that I was done.
That scene is basically where the beginning of the strange goings-on start. Flori has a bit of magic, which she doesn't really know how to use. The essence of it is that she can take a person's thoughts and dreams and turn them into reality. Not actually reality, but to the affected person, it's as good as reality. Since Flori didn't really know how to use her magic, it really only manifested in really vivid dreams and daydreams in the people around her (There were probably some negative consequences as well, but I don't know what they are yet). But some other people find out about it and want to use it to their own ends. But then there's a major spoiler which I'm not going to tell you~

Then again this morning, we each read another piece of our work. Everyone's work was very good, in completely different ways.
I took a couple pages from Katani's prologue, where Hyo hears the prophecy and tells the Emperor (I call Kazuhi a "King" for the moment, but I need to change all of those references to "Emperor").
I also changed Lari's name to Yoka. I'm still not used to that shift yet. And I'm going to change the names of at least three other characters too. Sigh.
I didn't seem to get as many comments as the other people did for their readings. They said that they could easily picture the scene, and the dialogue and gestures. But they didn't say much else. I could try to guess why, but I doubt if I'd be very accurate. Heheh. Like "my style of writing was different from what everyone else wrote, so they didn't know what to say." Except that wouldn't make much sense.
Then, after lunch, we had our closing circle.

In the free time I had before Mom came to pick me up, I worked more on the first two chapters of Katani's story. A couple days ago, I sent them to Nick and asked him to mark them up for me. He'd never marked up any of my stuff before (though he'd read a few of my shorter things) so I wasn't sure what to expect.
Nick's a very good proof reader.
Beware, Nick! I will start coming after you in the future to have you tear up my stuff! Actually, I might send you chapter three once I read over it once more. I gotta send it to Ellen and Crystal. Nicole too, probably.
Anyway, thanks for the advice, Nick! (I"m assuming you'll read this some day) I spent much of the afternoon fixing a lot of your comments. Which reminds me... I have to go back over the first chapter again.
I wonder if I'm spending too much time on the first two chapters right now. Except this is when they're fresh in my mind. And I'm not sick of working with them yet. So I'll look over the first chapter once more to make one of my alterations fit in better.
And somehow I keep neglecting Katani. When Nick told me his impressions of Katani, Len, Yoka, and Garrett, he was pretty spot-on for the other three. And then he said what he thought of Katani, and I went, "whoa! That's so wrong!" Totally my fault, of course. I went back and tried to add more of his essence and reactions. I probably still need to add some more, but I think I've gotten a better image of Katani in there.
I could go on and on about all the stuff I need to fix for Katani, but you'll be glad to know that I'm going to stop here.

Fact of the Day:
In the 1800's, flocks of passenger pigeons were said to darken the sky from horizon to horizon. Then, at the beginning of the 1900's, they disappeared forever, hunted to extinction.