<p>He had just laced up his sneakers when his pop steamrolled the back of his head with a well-connected punch. Dazed and on the floor, he crawled in an inordinate fashion, reaching out with his hands for something that would guarantee temporary security. He clenched a plastic lightsaber and only managed to stagger to his knees before the steam engine express passed through again, this time on his stomach. Before losing consciousness, he briefly spotted a steel-banded ring on his dad's left hand, that was unfortunately making its way towards him.</p><p>A middle-aged man was sitting in a hospital, taking in the details of the room. Get-well cards and bouquets of flowers littered the table at the far-left end. The soft hissing of the television could be heard from across the hall. The man turned toward his terminally-ill father, who was comatose with steel-banded ring in hand. He read his book.<br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

I know it's late but I sincerely appreciate any comments
Thanks - AJ

I wrote something for the memory challenge. i know i might not becoming a winner because i did it so late but i would be very delighted and happy if you all took sometime to read it. It really did bring back memories and gave me alot to think about. i also think it helped me as a better writer, because i had actually described the feeling of it all and also the things that ran through my head. You all have a great mind and talent i could never exspess. Thankyou All....Love Ladie2

@ShanaPupik: I tried the gender genie post thing and it got me right! That's pretty neat!

I posted my entry for the Memory Challenge last night.  : )

I have just posted my entry for the memory challenge, "A Black Memory."  I am new to the site and would appreciate some feedback. There are lots of things to read on the site and I am feeling a little overwhelmed as to where to start. Any tips?

Perhaps we need flashing lights encircling it, big arrows and a hand that pops out the frigging screen to lead people to press that big blue button that says 'Start a new Chapter.'  It comes to something when Shana gets irascible ... imagine how a no nonsense, doesn't suffer fools easily person like me feels about these stupid errors.  Get it together people, it's not rocket science; you're embarrassing yourselves.  And in the case of Wooter, well I don't think you read past the words 'The Memory Challenge' - at least I hope you didn't.

Dear Webook,

I don't know what else you can do. You shouted the directions, and I even re-shouted them in the comments, but people are STILL posting work here. I used to send private messages to tell them how to post, but since you fixed your lack of instruction, I don't do that so much. And my time is running thinner these days!

Sorry. I can't help these people any more. They just don't get it! And what's with the novel?

I guess I've gotten meaner by befriending the nasty folks! Y'all are having a bad impact on me. Sorry newbies.

TO SUBMIT, START A NEW CHAPTER FOR THIS PROJECT.  (It's the little button on top).

My sister lost her voice completely the year she was in Mr O’Toole’s class.  It didn’t come back until Mum moved her to a different school.   

I dreaded being in Mr O’Toole’s class; he was short, balding and wore the same tweed, mustard-coloured jacket every day.  Coming to his class in Standard 2 I waited for the axe to fall.  I look like my sister and if he could make her lose her voice then I’d better watch out.  Mr O’Toole liked to point at a pupil, requiring that person to stand up saying, “Yes, sir!”  Mr O’Toole would then fire questions at the chosen victim.  Questions like:
          “Name the the capital of Canada?” 
          “Name three countries in the British Empire?”
          “Who invented the telephone?”
          “How do you spell arithmetic?”  (That was easy: A Red Indian Thought He Might Eat Toffee In Church.)
If we didn’t answer his questions in an instant, the ruler Mr O’Toole held in his right hand would start slapping against his left hand in a threatening manner as he paced the floor.  We were always on tenterhooks in his class.  He was a bully.  I got the strap one day because he said he’d seen me poke my tongue out at him on my way to school.  I had done no such thing and was furious at the unjust punishment.  All credit to Mr O’Toole the next day however, when he announced to the class that he’d made a mistake; Tui wasn’t the girl who’d poked out her tongue.  He invited me to front of the classroom again, this time to apologise to my face for strapping me.
“How can I make amends?”
“Can I strap you back?”
 And so the class came to see me climb up on Mr O’Toole’s table and jump, strap in hand, to swipe his out-stretched hand as hard as I could as I sailed past!

But I am getting ahead of myself.

In my first term at school I missed a day of school because I got knocked down by a postal truck as I crossed a road on my way to school.  The truck driver drove me home and then half walking, half running, he carried me shoeless and tearstained, from the cab of his truck to our front door when, without his having knocked or rung the doorbell, Mum burst out, anxiety creasing her face. 

“What’s happened?” she asked the man, hands up at her throat. 
‘Your wee girl ran out onto the road in front of my truck and I couldn’t stop in time!  She’s all right though, I think.  Oh, and here are her shoes.”

I clung to Mum, my head buried in her shoulder.  I wasn’t crying much, just a bit.

“Are you hurting anywhere sweetheart?”
“No, but Gaynor’s book got ruined and she’ll be mad at me because she said I couldn’t take her fairy book to school and I took it anyway!”
“Never mind the book; as long as you’re not hurt, that’s the main thing!”

Mum cuddled me for a long time and then put me back into my recently vacated bed and tucked me in with a kiss and told me to lie still and quiet for a while.  I thought about how glad I was that one of my shoes had broken the truck’s headlamp as it flew off my foot.  I touched my leg and it was a bit sore where the truck had hit me.  When I looked under the blankets I could see a big patch of red skin; there was no bruise though, not yet.

North School was a mile from home and my brother and I walked there and back each day while our bigger sisters rode their bikes.  The only reason I’d been on my own on that morning was because I’d dawdled at home in order to get my sister’s book without being seen; it was stuck up my gym frock when I’d crossed the road without Looking Right, Looking Left and Looking Right again.

Our school was a big austere brick building in North Invercargill and within each of its cold classrooms sat up to 45 children, two per double desk. We chanted our times tables in a sing-song rhythm, learnt to write well formed printed letters in pencil and then joined up writing, in ink, with the right slope. We took turns being the ink well monitor, the toilet monitor or the blackboard monitor.  At the start of the day, again after playtime and again after lunch, at the shrill of a single blast on a whistle, we had to line up outside each of our respective classroom doors in two long, straight lines; boys in one line, girls in the other.  Once all of the lines were orderly and at silent attention another blast of the whistle signalled the start of the solemn march into the classrooms via the outside doors.

I became a diligent pupil.  I loved reading, maths and writing.  One year there was a competition to find the primary school pupil with the best hand-writing in New Zealand.  All the girls and some of the boys in our class entered.  This competition involved copying 26 set texts and submitting our work when each of us had completed all 26 pieces in our own time.  I loved doing this work and was meticulously careful with my pen and ink and the shape and slope of my letters.  It seemed a long time later, when the contest had long since been forgotten, that two men came to North School.  A special assembly was called and the two men stood on the stage of the assembly hall to announce the winner of the National Writing Competition. TUI FOX!  I stood up from my cross-legged place on the floor.  Gym frock, skinny legs and a grin from ear to ear, I walked through the other children to the centre aisle, up the aisle to the stage steps and up the steps to the men and our headmaster who all turned to greet me on the stage with big smiles.  After shaking my hand I was given a certificate and a money order for 12/6.  So much money!  After school I ran all the way home to tell Mum my exciting news.  I was out-staged by three Vulcan aircraft doing a flyover of the city; Mum, my sisters and Colin the boarder were outside, eyes skyward to watch these ‘planes.  My news didn’t come close!

My favourite teacher of all time was my Standard 3 teacher, Mr McCallum.  This teacher was kind; he encouraged and supported our learning and set us up for the rest of our school days with an ongoing thirst for knowledge.  I recall his long tots. 
“9 + 7 + 3 + 8 + 6 + 10 + 5 + 4 + 11 + 5 + 1 + 9 + 0 + 7?” 
My hand shoots into the air, saying “pick me, pick me!!”
“Tui?”
“85!”
“Correct.” 
Another set of numbers were reeled off and so our mental arithmetic skills were honed. One day Mr McCallum asked me to take the class for long tots.  I stood up the front of the room and called random numbers, keeping a track of the sub-totals as I called.  I decided then and there to be a school teacher when I grew up.

The day I took a baby owl to school for my morning talk turned into a bad day.  Everyone at school fussed over the wee owl I’d found under our neighbour’s monkey puzzle tree.  I had my photo taken with Baby Owl and I loved being the centre of attention.  After lunch break I returned to the classroom to discover that the owl had gone; removed from his box with breathing holes punched in the lid.  Someone had taken him!  Mr McCallum was upset with the class and demanded that the owl be put back in his shoe box.  It wasn’t until home time before the worst boy in the school, the boy who smelt bad, told someone else that he had taken the owl.  I found out and punched the worst boy in the school on his arm.  I got my owl back and took it home to put him back under the monkey puzzle tree where I hoped Mother Owl would find him.

I remember getting many injections in my arm, one for polio, another for measles as well as their booster shots; we lined up with one sleeve rolled up so that the person in the white jacket could systematically force a huge, blunt needle, which was never sterilised between uses, into our upper arms without any preamble or kindness.  I turned my head away from the injection site  because I knew looking at it could make people faint.  Visits to the Murder House were dreaded and all too regular.  We played fast and furiously in our playtimes and our grazed knees got a dab of Mercurochrome on them before we were off and playing at full steam again.

Polio was common and a risk.  One of the girls in my sister’s class was in hospital breathing only with the aid of an iron lung pumping air into her lungs and sucking it out again.  She couldn’t move any part of her body and she had to look at people via a mirror angled above her head at the top end of the large, solid chamber she lay inside.  One of the boys in my class had leg irons because his legs were affected by polio.  We were curious.  “If you take your leg irons off, can you tie your legs in a knot?   Have a go!”  We’d gather round to watch as he happily obliged to move his legs as we’d asked.

Another girl in our class had had heart surgery in Auckland; her face still went blue when she ran though.  “Run Judith, run”, we’d say and watch her go blue.  Or,  “show us the place where you got cut again?” She lifted her dress to show us her chest.  “Oooooh, that looks horrible!”   We were fascinated.

In Standard 2 my brother and I had to go from classroom to classroom to show each class our teeth and say how we cleaned them twice a day.  “Good morning boys and girls.  My name is Tui, this is my brother Murray.  We are here to show you what good teeth look like and we are going to talk about what we do to keep our teeth healthy.  Blah, blah, blah.”   How embarrassing!

The six years I spent at North School were happy years.  Although the school went all the way up to Standard 6 I left at the end of Standard 4 so that I could go to the new Intermediate School right next door to the High School I would attend when I turned 13.  

I never did become a school teacher.

I was cleaning out my closet. Something I should have done before it all came crashing down last time I was looking for something. I can't believe the crap I keep.
What is it with never wanting to throw things away?
 I was just starting on my second box of junk when I rammed something sharp under my finger nail. I pulled the offending object out to see what it was. It was just like I had turned the corner into yesterday.
I sat there nursing my bloody nail and stared at the old picture of my older sister and I standing down on the peer in OB. I could almost feel the sun and smell the sea air. Has she really been gone thirty plus years? I felt caught in that moment of time.I missed her all over again and was sad for all the years that we missed.

TO SUBMIT, START A NEW CHAPTER FOR THIS PROJECT.

If you post in the comments section, you won't get ratings, feedback, and a chance to compete.

"Did you check your console?"
"yes" I say as I open the console again.
"A green painted stone from Redondo Beach. A disc golf disc light for night play I bought in Sylmar. A bent nail from "A White Christmas". Two small Lego men I found in the gutter in Detroit near the Opera House.
Three pens, one highlighter, one Pilot G-2 10 ink pen; and one laser.
A pair of sterling hoops I havn't worn sine Portland.
One Willie Nelson guitar pick from his last show at the Fox.
And a picture of  my dead dog Nala.
That's when I realized I had been carrying the last four years of my life around with me and I had crammed it all into a tiny arm-rest console.
Damn.
Time to start moving on Cowgirl, the obvious choice from the view down here; is up.
The journey to heal ME begins.

  I had just completed an ehaustive entry into the Three Mile Island reactor room.As we tried to insert a camera into the core to examine the damage, from that fateful meltdown.All this went through my mind as I showered the water hitting my face stung.

 Suddenly I was jolted into  remembering another spray of hard water across my face, only it was salt water as I tried to climb the 50 feet up the side of a boat crane as my ship was taking a very bad beating in the "Bermuda  Triangle " in a hurricane.

It appeared as the sky and the ocean were as one.As I made it to the contol platform the ship violently rolled to the right throwing me  against the control wheels,losing my footing,I slid into a large motor banging my nose ,the blood, mixed with salt water. Were we abandoning ship.?

Oh my gosh! Oranges.  The smell of an orange sends me back in time to a little girl sitting in her daddy's orchard eating oranges in her own private tree.  A tree her daddy gave to her for her very own.  The sweet wounderful taste with the juice dripping down my arms and my hands and face sticky with orange juice.  The picture of a sickly scraggly blond haired, green eyed girl taking comfort from one of the few things she could eat and enjoy without becoming sick.  The smell of the blossoms and the wind blowing my hair, the sunshine speckeled on my body and the gentle rocking of the limbs.  The sound of daddy plowing around the trees and the utter safety of being well loved and cared for just because I was me.  How wounderful.

I was recently traveling on a country road past a farm. The usual fragrance of manure filled the air. The aroma instantly triggered my memory when I was a little girl running for my life from Czechoslovakia back to Germany at the end of WWII.

We were German children escaping the Russian infantry crawling in a wheat field. The stalks were green and tall allowing us concealment from machinegun fire. The soldiers did not discrimination; they fired at anything that moved. We were frightened and needed to crawl, fast and low, face down through the immature wheat field smelling the freshly scattered animal manure. The bullets whizzed passed my head. I silently cried and shuddered in fear with my nightmare at hand. I crawled for my life, digging my fingernails and pushing my face into the soil and manure moving as quickly as possible to make it back to Germany.

My submission is titled "Tunes of nostalgia". I really do appreciate feedback..... I do! :-)

I can't believe I just wrote that chapter.  Was a first for me but it just poured out.  Weird.  Hope everyone enjoys their experience writing as much as I.

It was the smell of gun grease, the slippery feel of the barrel, that reminded him: night pressing heavy on his chest, the twigs and brambles scratching his face and hands as he struggled through that Mississippi swamp. Fouts raised the gun; Pickens hurtled forward and in the moonlight the sudden bloom of blood appeared black.  He pitched forward on his face and Fouts ran to him but couldn't make himself touch the man, couldn't bear to turn him over.  Pickens was  alive: he turned his face to the side and his eyes rolled in their sockets, struggling to see.  He seemed surprised to discover Fouts standing there. “Who are you?”

“No one.” Fouts levelled the gun at Perkins' head but the man didn't try to move.

Fouts had stood over him, waiting, and eventually Perkins' voice faded away and his eyes rolled white in their sockets and he was dead.

I just posted and this is my first feedback.. or this is what It's supposed to be.

I just posted an entry. This seems fun, and the entries are great!

I hope mine gets viewed as well :)

You can't go by an entry. You must post something longer than 500 words in order for the computer to analyze correctly. Try a long post and see what it says. It may not be totally accurate, but it is fun!

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

Oh, I see... the word "the" is a masculine keyword. Oops! Guess we have to stop using the most common word in the English language, ladies!

Now I'm going to write something even more girly and see what happens!

Thinks I'm a guy too...

Ha ha that sounds fun let me try!

LOL, I pasted my entry there and it thinks I'm a male. :P

Weird! I type in the address, it works. I click on that link (same address), and it doesn't work. Must be a male computer. ;-)

I found a website that is SOOO fun! http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php ; You post a 500 word sample of your writing, and it will tell you your gender. Look out mysterious people. This computer rarely misses when determining the author's gender. Mwa ha ha!

I pushed down the pump and a little clear squirt of soap pooled in the palm of my hand. It’s not what I expected, it takes me by surprise. Mom always used the pearly lotion soap that smelled like roses. Our other bathrooms still have it, but I rarely use the office bathroom and I had no idea that it still had the soap refilled by Aunt Jenny, who was a bit of a germaphobe and bought antibacterial Dial instead of mom’s fancy soap. It was safe to say the last time I used this sink was that terrible week my mom died. When I went to wash my hands that week and the soap dispenser in my bathroom was empty, I had a nervous breakdown and my aunt jenny had to do it for me.  It made me realize how it’s the little things you miss the most.

I've made a final revision to my own piece and am still offering feedback for feedback :)

My submission is called "Red and yellow" and it is my first submission EVER, so please be as criticizing as you can! I would love any feedback on it.

My submission is called "It Haunts Me". I'd love to get some feedback on ways to improve it, or ways to cut it down to exactly 150 words. Thanks.

My submission is called "Calabaza: A Fairy Tale Part 1". I could use all the feedback I can get.

My submission is "Happy Father's Day" and would really love some feedback. It's more than 150 words, but I feel that I need to post it, and this is the perfect category to do so. If you would like feedback on your piece, just leave the name and I'd be more than happy to critique yours as well :)

Click on "Start a New Chapter"  (that blue button right after the instructions) and post your entry.

No payment involved!

How do we enter these contests? I don't want to pay to do the contest, because I hate paying online (and I don't have a credit card!) Do I just submit as a comment? Please help, I'd love to enter!

http://www.webook.com/submission.aspx?p=4ea6abc1aa1747a584615751030f8ca4&st=ae8949fc48594855a67ee13e72da674c

Check out my memory!!(:
It's called The Pink Rope. The link should bring it to you. I pinky promise (: Anyway would love some more thoughts on it, since now i finally have fixed everything and i know it how I want it(:
Thanks! & Hope u like it! I'll also return the favor, just tell me which story is urs!

I was excited with anticipation.  The night was absolutely perfect.  A new dress, a fantasic guy and a thrilling first day just hours away.  After picking me up he made the decision to pull off the side of the road to talk before arriving at our destination.  It turned out to be a horrible mistake and complete disaster.  It turned into a nightmare that I will never forget.  I see the dress each day in my closet but can't bring myself around to ever wearing it again.  My eyes fill with tears in remembrance this perfect night I visioned for days that ended up in nearly being raped.  I love the dress.  But when again will I ever be able to put it on without getting sick to my stomach, remembering his hands, his touch, the fear.  I was so realized when he looked in my eyes and pulled away.

I have something called Alive or Dead. Thoughts would be nice.

Read Tick-Tock please and tell me what you think<3

Just submitted "The Stories We Don't Tell", take a look and let me know what you think and I'll try to return the favor. Thanks.

"A Flower To Remember" has been slightly edited. Everyone is free to check it out.

Thank you.

Ok, I think that I have returned the favor of everyone's feedback, but if I somehow missed you, I'm sorry, just shoot me a message :)

Still doing feeback for feedback!

http://www.webook.com/submission.aspx?p=4ea6abc1aa1747a584615751030f8ca4&st=91d8ba73af304fe9a3636de523fccb4c

Please rate and comment. This is my first project and I'd like to know how I'm doing.

Please give me feedback! Is there anything I should fix? The name of my story is 'Cherries'. Thank You!

"A Flower To Remember" has been once more revised. Feel free to read, comment, and even rate if you'd like.

Thank you.

Hello everyone. I'm new to webook, so please help out a rookie! I'm excited to have found this social network and anxious to get some feedback. thanks.

http://www.webook.com/submission.aspx?p=4ea6abc1aa1747a584615751030f8ca4&st=ae8949fc48594855a67ee13e72da674c

Check out my memory!!(:
It's called The Pink Rope. If the link doesn't bring you to it, my story is all the way at the bottom. Sadly. Anyway I can't wait to have some feedback on my memory story!
Thanks!

I'm looking for votes on which story I should submit. Please check out Scarlet Memory and return feedback is guaranteed!!!

What I smelled put my hair on end. I instinctively raced for the nearest shelter. Ozone, I thought.  Get out from under the trees. NOW!

The second smell twinned the ozone: burnt meat. The thunder CLAPPED so loud it hurt my ears. So close! I ran faster as if I could distance myself from the past as well as the present.

"God help me," I prayed as I raced through the woods toward my uncle's cottage by the sea.

I had no time to wonder if the burnt meat smell was real or a memory so traumatic that it tricked me.

Out of the woods I began retching. Not for the burnt meat that seemed real but for the thing in the cottage just twenty yards away.

I had run to the woods for protection. Now  I was literally between the devil and the deep blue sea..

Never mind again, it is now titled "A Flower To Remember." Sorry for the constant changing, the change didn't reflect until a little moment later.

No, never mind, the title is still "Remember?"

The story "Remember?" had been revised and immensely edited. It is now found with the title "A Flower To Remember." New comments would be appreciated.

Thank you.

I have REVISED and am feeling much more confident about this version. Anyone who has already read my piece "A Rock was Merely a Rock," I would very much appreciate it if you could PLEASE TAKE A SECOND LOOK. Of course, I will do the same for you.

Also, anyone who has not read my piece, I am still doing FEEDBACK for FEEDBACK :)

For those of you who have commented on Scarlet Memory, could you take another look?

I've revised, actually, I've changed my story. I'd like your opinion on which story you prefer; this or the previous one (and I might change it back). Thanks!!!

What I love most about WeBook is how we all have the ability to improve after receiving great feedback. In fact, if I ruled the WeBook world, I'd place locks on the rating system so that no one could assign stars until a week after an entry had been submitted. Probably not technically possible but since we all improve, I don't rate during the first week unless I see a strong five! I wish others would follow suit.

My post is "The Fight", (still trying to think of a better title), but I'll read and give feedback to you if you'll read and give feedback to me.  Promise!

So I wrote another thing. It's called "Trust the Weed." No, it's not about drugs. Okay, it sort of is. Just read it and leave feedback. I'll maybe read yours in return. I will also probably leave feedback as well. And a plate of milk and cookies.

I am so very behind on returning critiques, but once I catch up, I plan to look at all of these requests from the comments page. If you request (on memory challenge) or critique mine, I'll get to it eventually. Thanks!

I feel like a beggar, but you are all welcome to comment on my scene. It is called "Remember?"

Thank you :)

Trade feedbacks?

My story is "It was February, once."

Please comment on Scarlet Memory.
Feedback return guaranteed. :)

Hey, I'd like some feedback on my story called Orange.
Thank you very much.

Looking for anyone who's willing to trade feedbacks :)

Looking forward to reading a lot of these.

FEEDBACK for FEEDBACK!!!