Hello Barbara and Bob,
Many thanks for your comments on this piece. It seems that you both agree on the failure of focus here and I can certainly see your point. You may imagine, though, how unwilling I am to lose that long introduction. I wonder if my problem here might be with the title. By specifying the season so precisely I have created an expectation in the readerīs mind and then Iīve started writing at length about something different. If the title were `Laplandī do you think you would respond to it differently? Would the start still feel like a long ( too long ) intro, or would the whole feel homogeneous?
Your point, Bob, about the end being too passive is a bit of a puzzler. That atmosphere on a still September morning in Lapland, when you really can hear a single leaf fall, is so much the opposite of active that you might believe time had stopped. Were you very bothered by the stillness of the ending?
Best wishes, Mike
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