Idol week 17 - Negative Reverse

[tonithegreat]

Ben wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone’s crap anymore. He was tired of his dad, absolutely sick of his mom, and one hundred percent through with his younger twin sisters. If he had to hear his mom tell them all that they should be thankful that they lived in a nice big three bedroom house one more time he was going to scream. No house was big

Comments

[karmasoup]

Oh, that poor man. What an awful time to be homeless. :-(

Though, to be fair, he's probably safer where he can move about and keep away from people than rounded up and shuttled into the giant areas where some are being "temporarily relocated."

[tonithegreat]

My city isn’t big enough to have a huge homeless population, but my office building and the pool where my kids practice both happen to be near green spaces that vagrants noticeably use regularly. And there was recently an incident at the pool that brought in a lot of law enforcement scrutiny including what looked to me like an effort to clear people out. Which I think was probably utterly terrible timing for those people. I do feel for them. But I also feel for the city officials trying to make good choices.

It’s easy for me write to realistic stir-crazy middle class, but I really wanted to throw something in there reminding us how first-world our problems are, even if there wasn’t a solution that was easy to imagine.

[sunouttomorrow]

I really enjoyed this. Timely without being preachy, and full of details that really helped put us into the story.

[tonithegreat]

Thank you! I’m especially glad I stayed on the right side of the preachiness line for you.

[rayaso]

You did a great job capturing the stir-craziness of the shutdown. It really stresses families. I read that domestic violence is up. I loved your ending. This was very well written!

[tonithegreat]

Thank you! I really ran out of time this week, so I’m glad it came across for you. I am sure that our neighbors are sick of hearing me yell at everyone here (and yes, maybe raise my voice on the occasional work telecon too), but it is too beautiful to close up all the windows here- and at least we haven’t resorted to violence. I’m sure it’s true that in more stressful places people aren’t that lucky.

[alycewilson]

Well done. Every detail of this served the story and brought us to a satisfying conclusion.

[tonithegreat]

Thank you! I ran way short of editing time for this week, so I’m glad to hear you thought the detail balance was right.

[alycewilson]

I did. And I found the voice of the teenager came over well. He's frustrated with the situation but basically a good kid.

[d0gs]

I love what you did with this!