Thread: Hi, an excerpt from my book about human nature and war

Hi,

I've had a read of the critique FAQ and all that stuff and to be frank I am not a literary person at all, but I am writing a book for personal reasons. I've long since gone past the point of ego and nonsensical fantasising self-assuring me falsely that it will ever get published. Rather I just entertain the process in a way which gives a small and well accomodated sense of interest in my life.

I have not and will not ever critique other people's work even though I get the impression that is what you're supposed to do here. I am not in any way, nor ever will be knowledgeable on literature or the literary profession and sphere enough to be able to do this. I'm an engineer and an electrician who's writing a book for the hell of it, because it makes him feel better. That's it. I am however for sure in the presence of experts in literature here, and it would be interesting to see what you think. So anyways, here's one chapter of a book I've written about 7,500 words of so far:

{4

Here it comes again. Events conspiring unstoppably to open my eyes to beauty. Beauty that just doesn’t conform to any human logic. A man in work whom I had never held in much regard began discussing with me his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. His words still stick in my head. “It’s a man’s world”, and it sure is. I could tell by the way he said it he also had an emotional capacity which was once somewhere else. He was an intelligent and thoughtful person, who had no doubt passed through experience to see that it is a man’s world. Although I suppose the benefits of my experience with my own personal hell enabled me to discuss evenly with him, I am yet again aware of things I would rather look away from. He described things about war he had experienced which I just do not have the stomach to write about right now (yes they are as bad as you either suspect or already know and yes they’re happening to people from the clinical West). Perhaps not ever again. It’s a truth I see clearly now. Yes I do now completely understand how business is really done in reality. Yet the question assaults me again and again of why am I here? I know I could not function in such an environment, and yet a non-human force conspires again and again to open my eyes to wonder and beauty, and I wonder is it trying to help me or it is just again leading me up the garden path. The beauty and immense potential within me to inspire, create and solve could all be wiped out in an instant. Dilemmas of sympathy for others assault me. Why was I chosen to live in a safe place in the West? Why do some people get horribly violated yet my own life has an undeniable underlying presence of continued commitment to force me to believe in wonder? Why is this non-human power wasting its time bothering with catering for me to such an extent? Why do some people take a grenade in the face and yet the same power goes to massive extents just to make me realise the importance of understanding the complex personal circumstances of others to enable smooth running of my life?

If anything significant ever happens to me I assure you this is being written at a time when my life is entirely pointless and unimportant. It’s not a post diagnosis fuelled by false memory or an attempt to create an image of immense growth from humble beginnings. Why do you bother showing me things like this? If the bizarre wonder of watching condensed water rising like steam from a giant kettle from a black faced canal at 2am on a freezing cold April morning in Cheshire, were only an illusion within me then such concepts would evaporate as soon as I left them. The misfortune in my life that always accompanies thoughts of giving up or finding a safe place to hide has made itself so uncannily apparent so many times it isn’t uncanny anymore. What the fuck are you doing to me? I mean the question not as one of exasperated despair but one of growing wonder and suspense. Like a long lost and long sensed feeling going way back going through the process of surfacing once more now all the shelling has stopped. What the fuck is going on? I wish in part now (once fully) that this were imagined. It isn’t. I’ve been through the National Health Service mental health machine already and all the well intentioned and very genuine people in it. I’ve been in an asylum, thoroughly understand words and concepts like psychosis and schizophrenia and delusional. I’ve had mind altering drugs to stabilise mood and long since been off them.

I have also been discharged from all psychiatric services without medication and I say with some humour that’s not an easy thing to achieve in the United Kingdom in present times. I also see now thanks mostly to the experiences I’ve had with some more enlightened members of AA how much of mental illness of that variety is involuntarily voluntary. These aren’t things I’m creating or imagining anymore, these are things I’m feeling and witnessing. I’ve even started to turn a largely blind eye to the witnessing process like a good recovered mental health sufferer should. It isn’t stopping these things coming through. They do not cause the immense over-reaction they once did though. In fact now they get no reaction at all. I for a long time had the concept that God – if you want to use that word – was like an emotionally spoilt woman toying with a hopelessly genuine man. The more you ignore it and convince yourself it’s a piece of shit the further you get. It even seems or seemed to throw tantrums of its own silent disconnection treatment to hurt me for doing so after some period of success in abstinence on my part. More and more in a very, very distrustful way it appears that I was negatively reacting to a truth that will not die. Cannot die. I am most impressed with myself that I listened to this incredible man’s incredible story without throwing myself into another thoroughly justified (by anyone’s means) depressive and reality grasping destruction phase of hope and dreams. And yes I’ve been through the horror revolution and I’m now approaching a ‘mans’ grasp of the world, so you’ve no need to suspect I am still pre-horror revolution.

Perhaps you doubt the sincerity of what I was told and could see in my mind when he spoke. As much as I didn’t want to, it appears I have no choice but to discuss it. He described a scene he had lived through which few could imagine. And no has wasn’t Special Forces. This stuff happens all the time, in this very day and age, to soldiers from even the Western powers in foreign lands. Nowhere in the press or on television will you ever, ever hear about stuff like this. It isn’t part of the plan for us to know, because we might, just might stop bothering to play ball if we knew. I mean really. Who gives a flying fuck about paying taxes, buying clothes or being polite to policemen when they know and can relate to in a way they can feel about genuinely brave British and French and American soldiers being disembowelled alive in Afghanistan surrounded by a backdrop of a fifty foot radius of almost indescribable red and random and utterly indistinguishable body parts? I’m talking torsos, blood EVERYWHERE, arms, intestines, mis-shapen heads, eyes, etc…. No I really do know what you mean, and what you’re talking about, and I can see these things quite clearly in my mind and ever evolving rule-less imagination. The sights, smells, physical feel of these body parts, and the worst thing of all – that utterly horrifying moment of a reality you only thought you knew coming flying in, in a way that makes you feel small and terrified in way you never, ever conceived of before. The moment where some remember their training compartmentalise and focus, some reunite instantly with their racial warrior memory, some blow up an in ecstasy of hormonal cascades and believe they’ve found their true selves, and some have all the most sustained and intense military discipline imaginable instantly rejected by a sense of compassion and detailed humanity they were utterly unaware they had – beyond all external and self brainwashing. In war, it’s always, always the first contact which really counts. This is where you swim in a myriad of ways you never knew existed up to that point, or you sink in any number of slight variations on the same humanity based theme. Some do indeed overcome the revulsion and become very effective soldiers. Massive amounts of fear being shown at that moment is in no way a sure sign you cannot be a soldier. You might overcome it to be an incredible and instantly world mature balanced professional who can exercise discretion in situations other people never even think about let alone imagine. You might just get by. You might become competent but yet still cruel. No-one knows.

All that’s before you even consider the concept of what kind of soldier continued exposure to the once unimaginable will create. And that’s even more complex still. So much so, it’s almost only observable, not logically digestible or comprehensible in source or reason. Psychopaths may become caring humanists. Terrified humanists may become (with time) so overcome with glee at dominating their own juggernaut of fear that they become hungry for war and violence in ways that entirely exclude safe return to life in a civilised world. And let’s be honest, we feel safe when these people are around if they’re on our side.

Satisfied? I hope so. I am not pre-horror revolution. And yes I’ve seen gore, and even sat through beheading videos with the volume turned on to full. I know. I hope. Yet onwards this non-human power marches. Never giving me a minute to rest in acquired wisdom or acquired emotionally justified safety, or abstinence. Onward it marches. This feeling of being taught, of being shown, of being woken up to beauty by an immense power. And no I’m not insane, because if I had a choice I wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be experiencing this, and these words wouldn’t exist and I certainly wouldn’t be living any kind of normal life to have access to the machine I’m using to type this. I think I’m going to finish this book after all.}

That's it. Doesn't sound that good actually reading it again! Anyways... Thanks

Nice work. I took a moment and read the first three paras or so. From what I read, this is very well written overall. Below are a couple of suggestions to improve, take what you need.

A man in [at] work[,] whom I had never held in much regard[,] began discussing with me his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He described things about war he had experienced which I just do not have the stomach to write about right now (yes they are as bad as you either suspect or already know and yes they’re happening to people from the clinical West). Perhaps not ever again. It’s a truth I see clearly now. Yes I do now completely understand how business is really done in reality. Yet the question assaults me again and again of why am I here?

The above reads a little disjointed and out of sync with the rest of your writing. The point is still there, but the prose doesn’t flow as nicely as the previous bit of the piece. Just needs a little fine tuning, imo.

cheers;
venus

Wow, someone actually liked it! That's great thanks for reading it and thanks for the help

deleted

I can appreciate your "stream of consciousness" writing. It made some sense to me, but of course, not all of it. This type of writing is subjective, discombobulated and can be very confusing. It is the nature of our consciousness.

However, as Red_Venus mentioned, it needs work grammatically.

Have you ever thought of streamlining it a bit into a story? Stories, which are inherenetly metaphorical in nature, tend to better translate the point of an experience or feeling into a more manageable and understandable form. Try turning it into something people can really sink their teeth into and understand.

Good luck!