Chapter 3, scribbles

[bfj]

Good Mc, but take a look at the Julia paragraph, gramatically it's all fucked up. also you've got a typo you say "I stared to fell... " I'm assuming you meant started. but yeah I didn't die, but i've got a terrible cramp in my chest.

[mccutcheon]

yeah I know. I shouldn't have posted that chapter but I was just doodling around on the computer and was lonely and felt like putting it up. All the paras that deal with the girls need improvment.

hope you are still breathing Jake.

[bfj]

i am, but i've got a chest cramp that's in its 2nd straight day

[sara]

"I went back and manually held it in place. Once again it clicked off"

That's called "topping off" if you want to use the idiomatic expression.

I like it.

[mccutcheon]

thanks Sarah. It needs a lot of work but I'm on it. This is like my own on line writing workshop. cool.

[sara]

you're welcome. It is cool.

I was not correct. The expression is topping off, but I didn't read very carefully. I thought your narrator was topping off, but he wasn't.

I've got nothing better to do until 8:00, at which time open mic night is on, and I get to see my favorite little cover band guy with my best girl friend. Woo-hoo! Beer and bad music!

So do you mind if I work? I can't help it. I think it's a disorder.

"Seattle is a bit of an oasis in Washington State because it is the only liberal big town but also"

not only always goes with but also:

Seattle is a bit of an oasis in Washington State not only because it is the solo, liberal, big town, but also . . . (then change "only" to "solo" to avoid redundancy -- although I don't really like solo as much as only, so you know . . .)

Do you know the quote from some writer about spending half the day deciding to put a comma in only to spend the other half deciding to take it out?

So I put commas in, the rule is use commas to separate adjectives in a series when they are describing a noun, if the adjectives are describing each other then you don't need them.

"The thermometer type thingy read almost empty." This is good; it's exactly what a person who knows very little about vehicles would say.

"petrol patrolman" are you going to establish somewhere that the narrator is from Europe or has spent a long time there? Americans don't say "petrol" (maybe they do, but I've never met one who does -- although I like the alliteration in petrol patrolman, it's a mini-poem)

This is very funny. I hope that is your intention. If not, it's still very funny:

“I know how to pump gas. I think the nozzle is broken or something.�

“All my pumps run fine. Get the fuck down from there. Ya never start a truck up with the nozzle still in the tank.�

I jump down from my seat and stand behind the man as he shows me how to fuckin' pump gas. After two futile tries he has me move the truck to the next pump and he tries again. The same problem keeps happening. As soon as the lever is pulled down to allow a full stream of gas to flow into the tank the nozzle shuts off.

You need a comma in front of "but" here:

“I told you it ain't my pumps, but do what you want.�

Conjunction, junction what's your function hooking up phrases, clauses, and . . . when you have two independent clauses (two simple sentences), and you want to join them you put a comma in front of the conjunction. The seven conjunctions you need to worry about are: FANBOYS -- For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So

"My trip was coming down, and I was left with the chills of my cold."

[Tommy Martyn]

The corridor west of the mountains in Washington state is fairly liberal. Tacoma is a liberal city as is Olympia. Evergreen state college is probably the most radical institution out there.