A88
A88 11/25: Can the deadline be extended?? I still need time to craft my story - also would love it if someone worked with me to shape it after I submit it.
TSP 11/25: Thank you so much for your interest in submitting to The Story Project! We would be happy to extend the deadline to January 3rd. We would also love to work with you to shape your piece, ideally prior to the later deadline. Feel free to reach out to us again via our anonymous form and/or submit your piece on the submission form and include any specific questions or concerns regarding the piece. After submitting, check back here for further communication!
TSP 11/29: Thank you so much for your submission!! We really appreciate you sharing this incredibly intimate story with us, and we all found it moving and beautiful. From the way you describe temporal wasting through your mother and the patient you took care of, to the line "Thought I was a rock, turns out I was a broken eggshell, oozing yolk and viscous liquid" - you took us into your mind and emotions with so much grace and skill.
You asked us for ways to shape the piece, so we've accumulated a couple of suggestions here! If you have any followup questions, feel free to fill out the anonymous form again and we will be able to expand on any points!
For the second and third paragraph, you compare your mother to patients you had seen during your rotations. We suggest that a way to emphasize/make the parallel clearer would be to clearly distinguish when you are talking about your mother or another patient. (Sometimes, even a paragraph break could be useful so the performer can maybe work a pause or a break to indicate to the audience it is a different person.)
We were wondering how you felt about ending the monologue at the second to last paragraph? The last line you have there ("how hard the real work of healing really is") is incredibly powerful, and forces the reader to think organically about the categorizations of realizations you lay out (last sentence of second to last paragraph.)
In your paragraph starting with "my heart wrenched in distress" -> if you felt comfortable just adding a couple of more words on whether or not your decision to call the pall care doctor and chaplain was from the comment your mother made about anesthesia, or the accumulation of all the things she was saying to you/doctors might add a bit more power to this part, which seems to be the turning point of the story.
We hope this is helpful! Thank you again for submitting.