So does this mean I need to write more? Or are you ready to have a butchers at The Novel? Or a bit of it, at least?

Having said that, I would like to see more of your stuff. There is more, isn’t there? Please don’t tell me this is it, that you are now a dried-out husk devoid of all creativity…

Confession — the hi-tops thing just happened ‘in the moment’. Probably dates me more than Jed.

The quote is from ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ — to walk a mile in another man’s shoes. I think it’s Atticus who says this to Scout. I’m not a great rememember of things, so may have got this wrong (and one of my pet hates in corporate life is people who spend their speeches quoting others).

The tag. Well. I spend most of my working life evangelising tags and the semantic web. It’s strangely cathartic to attach arbitrary tags to things. I would have created a new tag for this instance, but I didn’t have time to think about it post-modernly.

(Rememberer and post-modernly in one comment. The OED would be proud.)

Well. I liked it. I felt like I was seeing the world from inside Jed’s head and there were things about the world that I/Jed never quite *got*; the depths behind things, the reasons why people do stuff. Jed’s kind of made it in life maybe in spite of who he is, maybe because of who he is.

It’s a neat arc from beginning to end. The narrative description is light yet more than enough to conjure up scenes from Jed’s childhood, my imagination filling in the gaps. I could almost smell those well-made shoes, that leathery gluey smell.

The reference to Converse Hi-tops dated the story perfectly, linking that pivotal moment in Jed’s and his grandfather’s life to the present day, 20 years later. In fact, the ‘present’ could be 10 years ago if the Hi-tops Nate wore were brand new. Heh, I get kind of hung up about period detail like that. Anyone know what London filling stations looked like in 1968? Specifically, did they have canopies overhead? I really really need to know…

What didn’t I quite get? What was the book Jed’s grandfather gave him? Should I twig that, or is it just something to carry the phrase about walking a mile?

Finally: tagged with ‘bears’? What?

Double finally: if that is a first draft then gawd knows where you’re going to polish it. Unless it’s just the prologue to the novel of Jed’s life. Which I, for one, would read.