workshop--jess

"Counting" by Jess Miles
The opening scene is really good, lots of great detail like "odd shadows on my body." My favorite moments in the essay were the ones that started with your age, like "I am five." These are really clear and take us right into that place with you. You didn't seem to have a bunch of unnecessary details, but I felt that the piece could have flowed smoother, like you could incorporate the information about your condition differently. Do you remember any conversations with the doctors? Or maybe with your parents, when they were making you eat more? Those could be opportunities to give us info discreetly. I'd really like to know more about your parents getting rid of the scale; that seems important to me. In the thirteen-year-old scene, I was confused about what you were thinking. Maybe put thoughts into italics to clarify?
I think a better title could really strengthen this whole essay. Or, if you stick with "Counting," maybe you could play around with making it more of a number kind of thing, like instead of age, you could say something about how much weight you've lost or something (I don't know if that's something you want to say in it, just brainstorming). Maybe this idea of luck that you bring up sometimes could develop more, and the title could come from that? Also, you might want to try moving some of the crots around, like on the last page when you start describing what school was like, etc. Maybe you could incorporate some of those paragraphs in with the appropriate age stories that they correspond with? Good job!