I really like the message of this piece. I think too many people are concerned with never making mistakes or being perfect, and the lesson you present at the end, of using mistakes as a source of wisdom and learning something from them is a lesson we should all take to heart when things don't quite go according to plan. We often learn more from our mistakes than we do from the things we do right!

From a technical standpoint, the piece felt a little unfocused. It starts with an anecdote about brushing your teeth with pain gel rather than toothpaste and missing a train (i.e., an unfortunate but relatively innocuous circumstance), and then specifically say that "making mistakes might be one of your strengths."

But the examples that come after (not telling your mother that you got in trouble at school and then losing your passport on an international trip) where the lessons learned are kind of very quickly summarized at the end as "don't blindside people" and "own your mistakes." While the overall point of the piece (embrace your mistakes and learn from them) is well-taken, it felt like a common throughline to these mistakes was missing, which led to the disjointed feeling where the theme of the piece is clear, but it's less clear how these three mistakes specifically tie together and why you chose them instead of other more thematically connective mistakes.

Overall, I think you're off to a good start here. You include a bit of humor to offset the serious tone of some of the concerns, and your writing style is casual and friendly. I think there's some room for refinement, but otherwise this was a very enjoyable read. Nice work!

Nice job on this poem. I thought the message was great, and you structured everything really well. It was a solid read. Nice work!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I liked this piece a lot, and thought you did a good job with it. Well done!

I really enjoyed the imagery in this piece. I thought you did a great job painting a vivid picture in each stanza, with each stanza contributing to the larger whole. Nice work!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this piece. Well done!

I think you have a good setup for a story here. The palace intrigue about how the "evil queen" character comes into powerful is interesting and a great lead-in to a story proper.

Some of the details of Naomi's reasoning (and the kingdom's rules) are a little unclear. Why does Nathaniel have to die in order for Naomi to take power? It's just kind of assumed that Nathaniel has to die in order for her to gain the throne, but most monarchies in the world have processes for abdication (or other disposition of the throne) and entire succession plans built around who the next person in line would be to the throne. It felt a bit like the mechanics of how Naomi took the throne weren't fully developed... and it could be as easy a fix as Naomi just not wanting any option other than Nathaniel's death. Maybe he offers to abdicate but she says she doesn't want any loose ends out in the world or something like that?

I think the fact that Nathaniel still wants out of the responsibility after his parents' deaths is what makes this difficult. It would almost make more sense for him to take his obligations as the new king seriously (to honor his parents), and then, when Naomi threatens him, he refuses to abdicate, so then Naomi feels like she has to kill him.

Overall, I think you're off to a good start with this story. Nice job!

This was an an interesting set of observations on the younger generation. I enjoyed the fact that you reveal at the end that you're very specifically talking about your kids as representatives of their generation, and not generalizing about the entire population.

You might want to consider adding secondary and even third-level genres to this piece so it's not just listed as a "holiday" piece. While the holidays are referenced in the piece, it's very clearly not about the holidays, so it might get more traction if it was also categorized as Political, Relationships, Personal, etc.

Overall, this was an entertaining read. Nice job!

I like the disjointed feeling of reading this poem; I think you did a great job using the structure to reflect the sentiment trying to be expressed.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a good job with this piece. I always enjoy it when a poem's form also enhances its function, and you did that really well. Nice work!

I really enjoy this form of poetry, and I think you did a good job fitting a complete sentiment inside a very restrictive form. It's not easy to manipulate a form this specific. Nice work!

No suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I think you did a great job with this piece. Well done!

I thought the language and the visual imagery in this piece was really impressive. Your use of detail painted a vibrant picture for the reader despite the brevity of the piece. Nice job!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this item. Well done!

This was a short, entertaining piece. I thought you did a great job with the structure, and capturing the fun of visiting someone's port here on WdC.

Given the breadth of material people are writing about here on the site, I think you could easily expand the content of this piece and find rhymes for checking people's ports for stories, poems, etc.

Overall, this was a great piece. Nicely done!

I really enjoyed the amount of story you were able to fit into a story of less than 500 words. Especially toward the end, you managed to tell a lot of narrative in a short span of time.

No specific suggestions.

Overall, I thought this was a good piece. Well done!

I thought this was a fun, lighthearted piece that was quite enjoyable to read. I can't say I share the same affinity for shopping that you do, but your passion for the pastime definitely shines through in this piece. Well done!

No specific suggestions.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this piece. Nice job!

I loved the twist at the end of this flash fiction story. You did a great job conveying a compelling story in just a couple hundred words, which is not easy to do. Well done!

The narrative where the protagonist seemed to be having an inner monologue with the reader in the first paragraph (where he wonders if the psychiatrist thinks he's even crazier than he himself does, and then the protagonist calmly discusses believing in vampires) undercuts the emotion of the rest of the piece, where the protagonist is fired up about this issue and borderline irrational. I would stick to one or the other (either logical or irrational) to avoid conflicting messaging in the story.

Overall, this was a short, fun read. Nice work!

The characterization in this story was excellent; you really captured a lot of personality and nuance in a fairly short narrative. Nicely done!

No suggestions.

I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Purdy so shortly after this piece was written, but I think it's a lovely tribute to her. Great job!

I really liked the structure of this piece. The rhyme scheme had an almost lyrical quality to it, and the pace of the read was quick and snappy. Nice work!

I don't have any specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a really good job with this piece. Well done!

I thought the structure and the imagery in this piece was really good. The poem was articulate and visceral and vivid in its description.

No specific suggestions that I can think of.

Overall, I thought you did a good job with this piece. Well done!

I liked the sentiment of this piece. I thought you did a great job capturing the feeling of loss and the determination to keep a loved one in your memory at the years march on. Nice work!

One typo I noticed: You're gone so it will one day win...

Overall, I enjoyed the read. Well done!

I thought you did a great job with the description and the detail in this story. It was really visceral and easy to imagine. Nice job!

No specific suggestions that I could think of.

Overall, I thought you did a good job with this piece. Good work!

You did a great job with the pacing and the atmosphere in this piece. It was creepy and thrilling, which is the hallmark of a good suspense/thriller story. Nice work!

The logistics of what happened were a little confusing for me. Jim went into the back room and took a nap so he didn't notice in the camera feed when "the old man at the counter dropped to the floor like a sack of flour." When he wakes up to close the store, he runs into the stranger, and sees the dead guy at the counter ... and then does "a double-take around the store where he saw the other patrons from hours earlier littered in the aisles he could see from the front. All lying lifeless on the floor."

But then at the end of the story, we realize the stranger is a girl who's there to kill Jim specifically for something he did in the past. Did she come into the store and murder all of the patrons just because? Were they connected to Jim as well? Was what happened with the old man's fall against the counter an accident, or was that also the girl? If that was the girl, she killed everyone, then hung out in the store, standing there for two hours while Jim took a nap?

Some additional clarity on how the events play out moment-by-moment would be helpful to increase the tension of the story.

Overall, I think you're off to a great start with this story. Well done!

This was a really touching, emotional story. You did a great job of communicating a lot of resonant feelings in comparatively few words, through the medium of (mostly) dialogue. Well done!

I had a hard time understanding why James expected his sister to mail off his college application, or why she didn't do it. I know that's incidental to the larger point of the story, but it seemed like a very specific example, but without the benefit of specific details to better understand the "how" of what happened.

Overall, I think you're off to a great start with this piece. Well done!

The structure of this piece was really nice, and you did a great job of communicating a complete and interesting perspective in comparatively few words. Good job!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I like the fact that this piece was simple, well structured, and still managed to communicate a clear perspective. Nice work!

I thought you did a great job with the characterization of dreaming as the same kind of affliction as any other addition; that was a really original and unique take on a familiar subject. Nice work!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I think you did a great job with this piece. Well done!

The letter from Mirabelle to Eirwyn feels familiar and comfortable, as if written by two people very familiar with one another. I liked the informality and the sense of relationship, and it really helped anchor this piece.

As someone who's coming into this worldbuilding fresh, it felt a bit much all at once, and a little overly-expository. In the span of less than 1,000 words, we're introduced to seven named characters (Mirabelle, Eirwyn, Cassius, Belenus, Rowan, Gosse, Clementine), plus an additional five worldbuilding concepts (Enchanters, The Order, Laurentinus, Ariels, The True World) which aren't given a lot of explanation or context. And while those details do add an element of authenticity to the letter itself and it's point of view, it's a bit confusing for an outside reader who has no knowledge of these things. Presumably, they will be explained later in the story proper, but it made the prologue a little less engaging than it otherwise would have, not knowing anything about The Order, or whether the "protection of the Ariels" is significant or not, etc.

Overall, I think you've got a great starting point for a prologue (and a larger story) here. You clearly have an entire narrative backstory and setting laid out, which is really commendable. I would recommend focusing this prologue on a more digestible moment with less exposition for the benefit of the reader, and then letting some of those other elements and characters reveal themselves in time. But I think you're off to a great start!

I really liked the message of this piece, and the way is was presented. There was an eloquence to the piece that I appreciated.

No specific suggestions for improvement that I could find.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this piece. Nice work!

It's always a pleasure to have the opportunity to review one of your poems, and this piece is certainly no exception. I really like the way you structured this piece and the homage to "The Birds." Well done!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

As always, your poetry is top notch. Keep up the good work!