hi, cathy--

i really liked this story! you do a great job of bringing this poor woman to life (irony! *cracking myself up*), her loneliness, her disconnect from the world (and even herself, when she's losing track, and marveling at how aged she's become).

you mentioned this is a first draft, that you'll be fleshing this out as you work on it, and i'm figuring you'll catch the occasional typo then, too--so i won't bother with that stuff.

lines i especially liked:

Blue ribboned veins snaked their way from her knuckles, all the way up to her shouldler.

her hands and arms (by extension) are tools of her lifelong trade, and this image of her growing frailty implies much more than simply her marked veins. nicely done.

Things were changing fast, though. 

oooh, good foreshadowing. we know something's coming, and this first change in the story is our clue . we don't know what it means, yet, but we know this shift is important to her and the story. you worked this in to read naturally; the line feels like a continuation of her ruminations about her fading life, but also feels a bit ominous.

An old woman appeared in the window, holding a ginger cat, and looking at the For Sale sign in the yard

you tie the two 'for-sale'-sign scenes together in a neat package. we pretty much know what's going on at the break, when we shift to the new characters...i wonder if there's a way to make the revelation a surprise? not all stories need a twist, but we know edna has no idea she's died; how cool would it be for us to believe she's still alive until that last 'gasp' moment with the for sale sign? well, it's an idea.

i like your writing style--relaxed and intimate--and this story feels comfy as a result, even with the death and loneliness. *cheesy smile*

i look forward to seeing what you add to this as you rewrite--please let me know when you're ready and i'll be happy to read again. thanks for writing and posting your work, cathy.

First of all, I really enjoyed your story. The plot is definitely an interesting one. I reminded me a lot of the movie, The Others. Anyway, I'm not really as good at writing critiques as other people are on here, but hopefully my comments will be helpful.

First of all, I don't know that much about the old lady, other than she is a ghost writer and alone with only her two cats to be with her. Knowing a little bit more about her in the beginning is a great way to strengthen your hook.

Edna never married; she shared her humble home with her two cats, Sadie and Felix, and that suited her just fine. She Had the peace and quiet it took for her to write. She was working on a book call Reflection In The Mirror. Her headaches would bother her so much at times, that she had to postpone her work until it went away. Her bones and joints creaked as she moved, and sometimes she didn't hear the cats when they demanded food. Edna tried to keep on top of things, but ut was getting more difficult to do with each passing day.

I really like this paragraph, but it seems like you are cramming two different ideas into one. You start talking about her job as a ghost writer and then hop to her physical ailments. After reading more, I understood that her aches and pains connected vaguely with her writing, but at first reading it, that paragraph comes off disjointed and awkward. If you were able to smooth out the transition between the two ideas, maybe add some info to her work and separate the paragraph into two separate paragraphs, it would be a lot easier to understand and read.

In the part with Leslie and her mom, describe the scene a little bit more. Like, is Leslie and her mother in a car? Just walking down the street?  Also, how old is Leslie suppose to be? She seems to be between the ages of 10 and 12. If so, I would think that her mother would be less apt to explain all of the morbid details of the woman's death. If you are trying to allude to the fact that the woman DID die the way that she had always feared, perhaps you could do some internal thought on the side of the mother. Also I doubt many adults would believe in ghosts and that kind of stuff and even so, they'd be reluctant to to immediately say 'It's haunted' to their child. It seems Leslie's mother takes more stock in the Real Estate people's belief that it is haunted and that is unusual.

Other than that, just remember to spell check your story. I do this too on my stories, so I have to be careful myself, but I found several typos that slowed down the pace of the story.

Hopefully this helps!





 Hey Cathy Carlson, your stiry is nicely done, but there are some mistakes that I would like to point out for your in order to help you. Here they are:

Blue ribboned veins snaked their way from her knuckles, all the way up to her shouldler. 

 

At the end of the sentence is the mistake. For one shoulder is spelled wrong. Spell it like S- H -O -U- L- D- E -R.

Edna never married;

I am not sure about this sentence but I think that the sentence should be something like this: "Edna was never married." or you can just keep it as it is. This is mu suggestions but as you the author, you should be the judge of what this part if the story is supposed to be written like.

Tears flowed down her wrinkled cheeks, as she though of herself creased and senile, curled up in a fetal position with only her two cats to accompany her into the hereafter.

 

The ending parts of this sentence need a lot of work, because at the end when you say "with only her two cats to accompany her into the hereafter" that part confuses me on your usage of the word hereafter. Make sure you be careful with those kinds of words, or to make matters better, get out a dictionary and research what the word means. But I can tell you that you should say your sentence like "with only her two cats to accompany her hereafter."

 Once she was in the kitchen, she thought: Now what am I doing here?"

In this sentence right in the beginning where it says she though :Now what am I doing here?" you forgot to add a set of quotation marks to the left of the word now. Like for instance, you would write it something like she thought "Now what I am doing here?"

 "That's very strange," she said to herself, "I don't remember putting that sign out there.  I can't sell this house.  Why, where would I go?  I have no one to take care of me.  This is my home.  I have to stay here.

*******************************************************

 

You forgot to add quotation marks at the end of the dialogue that Edna said in the sentence. Put them where it says I have to stay here." And the many asterisks lining your page really irks me. Don't you need only three I thought?

Look at that neat hoouse

The word "hoouse" really irks me because there are two Os in that word instead of one of them. It is spelled like "House."

A soman used to live there, who was a recluse

In this sentence I think that you are trying to say "some man" instead of "a soman". What is a soman? Try to write it something like this Some man used to live there, who was a recluse.

As mother and daughter, turned from the house, An old woman appeared in the window, holding a ginger cat, and looking at the For Sale sign in the yard.

 

Parts of this sentence are incorrect as some parts irk me so. For one I think that in the beginning of the sentence that you are trying to say "As a mother and a daughter". Also you do not need a comma right in front of turned from the house. And the word "An" in the sentence should be lowercased. All in all this was a great story with much potential and if you follow these suggestions on this critique, then the story will be written better than it is!

I like the idea of having a ghost writer becoming a ghost. You've done a good job of introducing Edna, as well as her cats which help us see her as a current day character,  the twist of  her being a ghost isn't predictable. The transition between Edna's POV and the mother and son conversation is a bit choppy. Perhaps Edna could linger at the window as she ponders the sign while stroking her cat...does she notice the car? Is she in the same time and place? or in a different dimension?  You switch to a narrator voice at the end, and it isn't clear if the boy and his mother see the woman and her cat at the window or not. Is living in a house something that is particularly intriguing for the father? If so, why? It would be interesting to know how dad fits in since he is mentioned.

I think you have a workable idea here for a story plot.