Can't believe I just discovered this.  Love chapter 1, moving on to the rest.

That made me cry sooo much!!
I'm kinda glad Morry didn't go with Carol, or whatever her name was - that first woman. She didn't understand about writing... how could she just throw someone's work away like that? That turned me off to her when she did that. I'm glad Tuesday was up to the task of finishing it.

Although, I do have to agree with Melissa about "summary" and "Scene." You used a lot of "summary" language in places that I would have been happier seeing things "as they happen" instead of getting told about them as if they've already happened.

Otherwise, I loved this.
Again - WHY aren't you published yet??

Also:  One of the things I talk about a lot when I critique writing is the balance between scene (passages where you render action descriptively in "real time," as it is happening) and summary (passages where a narrator moves the story along by summing up action or time passing).  It's important to have both -- in general, scene should be used for moments of great impact.  You can speed through periods of time using summary, and then when it's time to make the reader sit up and pay attention, you shift to scene.  That slows down the pace of time, and draws the reader into experiences events as they unfold.

Your dominant mode of narration here is summary.  (Though you do use scene well several times.)  It works in part because you have developed such a strong narrative mode.  But in expanding this, you will want to use more scene, and sometimes shift away from the closeness of your third-person narration, so that we don't get every single second of action filtered through your narrator's voice.  This will break up the sometimes monotonous feel of the narration, and it will allow you to expand the story without necessarily expanding the period of time that your plot covers.

The writing is very strong.  The voice is coherent and compelling, and there are a few turns of phrase, like "a kiss she found among her own that she's pretty sure must be his," that are really breath-taking.  The setting is vivid and nuanced, and I care about Morry as a character.

Unfortunately, it really isn't long enough to be published on its own.  As is, it doesn't have the complexity of a novel.  The story is really quite simple.  The middle several chapters begin to drag a bit, not because the writing isn't good -- it is -- but because there are no twists or complications in the conflict.  What you have here could potentially be compressed into a story of half this length, but it might be more interesting to take the characters and scenario, and flesh this out into a fully-realized novel.

In order to do that, you would have to take the central conflict -- Does Morry remain alone and in stasis for the rest of his life, or does he allow himself to live and love again? -- and add wrinkles and nuance.  The interaction with the Dragon Lady would have to be complicated and expanded -- as it is, it's not believable when he comes home and finds her trashing Steffi's stuff, because their encounters haven't been meaningful enough.  He doesn't REALLY let himself get involved with the dragon lady at all, despite the fact that he spends time with her, so nothing is REALLY at stake here.  One way to open this story up would be to draw this relationship out, and let Morry get truly entangled with this woman before everything goes south.  Then, the revelation could shift from a somewhat unmotivated, "I guess I will get over Steffi after all" right before Tuesday conveniently turns out to be available to, "I took a risk and opened my heart, and got burned.  But it was worth it because it shook me out of my coma, and now I can move on to something better."

This definitely has promise, and I hope you will keep at it!

I like it.

Hmmm...short, but good.  I enjoyed it
~Britt~

good luck, people will read this!

I like this.  The first chapter is very engaging and pulls you into the story.  The second chapter  has a slightly different voice - maybe the first chapter is more of a prologue.   I like the pace. Good job.

Well written, but a little long for a short story, and a bit too short for a novel, or novelette.

awesome

You know I have a soft spot for this project.  I wish you the best of luck.

Where are the comments left up to now? Doesn't matter, this one is worth it.

peace,
revel.