Others' Stories I Enjoyed

#10

A Night Out With the Girls

This story was great. I know what she means about having girls nights. They are the greatest times, and really do remind you why you are friends with the people you are friends with! I know whenever I have those nights with my friends we end up laughing till our sides hurt, doing and talking about things we would never dream about doing or saying when guys are around. I hate when they have to end, but then I always just look forward to next time!

http://junebuggirl7.blogspot.com/2006/01/night-out-with-girls.html

American Beauty:The Best Film Ever

I enjoyed reading this post. This is a movie that I too felt very strongly about after I watched it. I used to watch it all the time. However it has been a while since I watched it, but since reading this post I really want to go sit down right now and rewatch it.

http://cheryllovesdmb.livejournal.com/1181.html

Eve

This story made me smile, because it brought back an old memory for me. I had a teacher in the 10^th grade who on the first day of class to prove her point suddenly screamed and kicked the garbage can halfway across the room. She sure got our attention and kept it for the whole year, because we never knew what crazy thing she was going to do during each class.

http://cubbyoliver05.blogspot.com/2006/01/eve-kailyn-oliver-blog-7-i-remember_23.html

Restaurant

#9

You walk into the front doors and there is the bar in front of you along with the hostess table. The bar has 30 seats around it and about 10 of those tall tables along the outside wall. There are large open areas on both sides of the bar that are filled with tables.

The walls are wooden and covered with various ocean related things. Some are photographs, some are actual items taken from the sea, or from a boat that has sailed the seas. The tables are also made out of wood, and have pictures of fish, lobster, or some other sea creature on them.

You can hear the various conversations happening around you. There is a family telling each other about their days. A couple of guys are chatting about the latest sports news. There are some people sitting at the bar by themselves just chatting with the bartender and waitresses, or watching the TV that is playing quietly behind the bar. If you listen carefully you can hear music playing from the little speakers in the ceilings.

There is a lot of noise coming from the kitchen; sure sounds like the cooks are having a good time tonight. There is a smell, which is the combination of all the different fish and seafood they are frying, boiling, or broiling, wafting from the kitchen doors.

PFTSOB

#2

My friend Kris recently shared the following passage from her journal with me,

“Music is universal. There is music for every age, gender, color, creed, religion and experience. Music doesn’t alienate or discriminate. Music will always be there for you. It does not abandon, demand, abuse, destroy, lie or hurt. It will only leave you feeling sad and heartbroken when you want it to. It will never tell you aren’t good enough or smart enough or pretty enough, unless you let it. Music will always be your friend. It will always open your heart and mind. It will always be your guide to the known and the unknown. Music will always be the light at the end of tunnel.”

I have always been a huge fan of music and had never been able to explain why until I read this and she explained it perfectly. There really isn’t any situation or time in life that you can’t relate to at least one song.

My love of music has recently gone to a whole new level. When I was younger it was always which song was popular then, or which group had the cutest lead singer. Last year while watching American Idol, yes I watch that show. A contestant came on to audition who I instantly recognized. Constantine Maroulis, I had seen him perform on the national tour of the Broadway musical Rent a couple years ago. I had been impressed by his voice that night, and was hoping that he would make it far on the show. Although he was on a show that consists of mainly pop music, he is talented in many different genres of music, one of the main ones being rock.

He has a band from New York City named Pray for the Soul of Betty. The music is loud and raw, but it so full of emotion. Every one of their songs can be related to something or someone from your past. From the first note on the CD to the last note, it just hits you. No matter how I am feeling I can put in their CD and just jam to the music.

As I spoke about in a previous post, I was able to see them live back in September. The CD is great, but hearing them live just makes it that much better. The emotion these guys put into their playing is like no one I have seen. My friend Maryann recently attended a show on their current tour and said this in her recap,

“OK girls... fasten your seatbelts!!! The show was AMAZING...I am telling YOU. The different moods and emotions the songs give out make for a tremendous experience. I head banged, danced, and CRIED like a baby”

The band is not only talented lyrically and musically, but they really are a group of just down to earth guys. I also had the chance to meet a couple of the members at the show I attended. Talking with them was like talking to old friends. They truly do love and appreciate each and every one of their fans.

I am going to see them in concert this weekend, I can’t wait to experience it live again, and hear the new material they are playing, because I know it will be awesome.

Home

#1

Whenever someone asks me where home is I immediately think of my parents house in West Lebanon, NH. We moved there when I was 4 and I have lived there until this past summer when I moved into my first apartment, so it has always been where I called home.

It is an older house that still has a lot of the push button lights. My dad’s great aunt helped her father build the house in 1913. It is a Victorian style house, with 2 floors, along with a basement and attic. The outside is now painted brown, with yellow and blue trim. There is an enclosed porch along the entire front of the house, with bushes and flowers planted along the front. There is always a flag for the season hanging from the flag post beside the front door. When you enter the house you walk into the hallway and as my friends often say you immediately feel at home.

My mom is the pack rat type, so there is stuff EVERYWHERE! Numerous family photos are on shelves in the living room and along the wall along the stairs. My dad redid one of the walls in the living room and turned it into one big wooden bookshelf. The shelves are covered with books and miscellaneous keepsakes and knickknacks. There is also a cabinet in the living room that is filled with all sorts of decorative salt and pepper shakers my mom has collected over the years. Everywhere you look in the house there is just memories of things, whether it be things my siblings and I made in school, or keepsakes from relatives’ homes that have passed that were given to us.

The dining room has various pieces of antique furniture in it. There is one of the old style wooden changing tables, which has now become my mother’s plant shelf when she has to take them in from the porch in the winter. There is a breakfast bar that has now become storage for photo albums and other keepsakes. There is also an old piano; although it is never played it has remained in the same spot for as long as we have lived there.

The kitchen is pretty much a regular kitchen except there is a table in the middle. Although we have a dining room, our nightly family dinners still all took place at that table. There were numerous stories told over dinner at that table. Whenever I go home to visit, it just doesn’t feel like a complete visit until we all sit down and have dinner there. It is rare that my brother, sister and I are all there at the same time, but when it does happen it feels great to be with the entire family in the house.

The basement is unfinished, the walls and floor are concrete. There is just the washing machine, my dad’s office and tool bench, and a room that is used for storing all the camping gear. There is a door in the basement that leads out to the backyard, which is HUGE. There is a clothes line, playhouse, grape arbor, volleyball field, and various trees my dad has planted.

There is a lot of history in this house, and as they say if the walls could talk, there are so many stories that could be told. My dad has begun redoing rooms one by one, so the house is starting to look more modernized, but it will always be the place I will call home, no matter where my “home” might actually be at that time.

Water Fountain

#6

She looked at the clock on the wall, 1:50. Only one more hour till the bell would ring and she could go home and get some rest. She hadn’t been feeling well since lunch and was just trying to make it through the rest of the day. Suddenly she had a very sick feeling in her stomach and asked the teacher to go to the restroom. As soon as she locked the stall door behind her, she became very ill. She got a drink from the water fountain and headed back to the classroom.

She spoke with the assistant teacher and told her that she had just been ill in the bathroom and felt she needed to go home. The teacher told her that it was so close to the end of the day she really should just stick it out. Relunctantly she agreed and took her seat and went back to her reading. She couldn’t focus on any of the words on the page, her head was pounding and all she could see was black spots. She began to get the cold sweats and knew she couldn’t make it the remaining half hour. Again she approached the assistant teacher but got the same response.

Slowly she sat back down in her seat, just then the teacher started talking about closing things for the day. She turned towards him but was beginning to get that feeling in her stomach. She tried to focus on the teacher, thinking that she didn’t have anything left in her system to get sick from. She slowly stuck her hand over her mouth. The teacher continued talking about the lessons of the day and homework for the next day.

All the sudden she became ill, right in the middle of class. A stream of water just spouted from her mouth, all over the floor and the teachers desk. The teacher turned and looked at her.

“Maybe you should go the restroom?” he said with a look of disgust.

“Yeah,” was all she could mumble before running from the room.

She ran to the restroom and just sat in the stall and cried until she heard the bell ring. She waited another 10 minutes, just to make sure all the kids in her class would be gone before she went back for her belongings. When she made it back to the room it was empty except for the teacher. As soon as she walked into the room the teacher stopped what he was doing and turned to her.

“Next time you are feeling ill, you really need to ask to go to the nurse” he said angrily.

“But I tried to tell,”

“I don’t want to hear it” he snapped. “Just get your stuff and go home”

She felt the tears welling up in her eyes again and just grabbed her bag and coat and ran out the door. She couldn’t believe that the teacher wouldn’t even let her explain. She stayed home the next day, but when she returned to school the kids were all picking on her, and for the rest of the school year her nickname was water fountain.

The most amazing night

The doors opened and the line started moving. Was this really happening? I was about to experience this band live for the first time. I handed my ticket to the bouncer and entered the club. There was no one in the way of the stage. I walked as fast as I could. This was unreal I was leaning on the speaker. I couldn’t have been any closer. I turned to my friend and just started jumping up and down. After what seemed like hours the members of the band started to appear on the stage one by one. They finished tuning their instruments and just started jamming. The music blared from the speaker underneath my arms. It was loud but I didn’t care. I sang and danced to the music like I had never done before. I made eye contact with the bassist and instantly we both smiled. This was a dream come true for both of us. They had never played to a crowd like this. The room was packed and every single person in that room was there for them and was singing the songs right along with them.

The first show ended and my friends and I filed back outside to get in line for the second show. I was tired and my feet were killing me but I couldn’t wait to get back in there to experience it all over again. It seemed to take even longer for the band to appear this time, but finally they did. This show was different, they were playing longer and they were jamming even harder. They played every song from their album start to finish. I had listened to the album more times than I could count but not like this.

This band had brought us all together like family and it was so great meet some of the people I had been talking to through the message boards for months. The time had come to catch the train back to Connecticut. As I headed towards the door, I about walked into the bassist. He instantly gave me a huge hug and thanked me for coming. We chatted for a few minutes and it felt like I had known him for years. We took some pictures and then walked out on the streets of New York City. We spent the entire train ride home looking through our cameras and talking about the amazing show we had just seen.

When I finally arrived back home the next morning I was in the most amazing mood for days. This band had brought me so many things. Amazing music, amazing friends, and now the most amazing concert I had ever attended.

Introductory Post

After looking through the websites Creative Nonfiction and Brevity, I feel the definition they give to creative nonfiction is fairly accurate. They define it as telling a true story, but doing so in a way that is interesting and makes it unique to other writings on similar subjects. The story needs to be told in such a way that it will capture the reader and keep them interested throughout the entire writing.

While on the Creative Nonfiction site I read an excerpt from a piece of writing titled Night Rhythms by John T. Price. I enjoyed reading this excerpt because of all the detail that was put into it. He wrote it in such a way you could almost picture the room he was describing and feel like you were in it. This is something that I feel is very important in Creative Nonfiction because as a reader if you can picture where the events took place it makes it that much more real. I believe this piece of writing is a personal narrative. It seems that the writer is remembering a past experience while in a new place.

After reading a few more of the articles I believe that this type of writing is completely different than a lot of the writing I have done in the past. The majority of writing I have done has been fiction. However I have written some fiction and brought elements of nonfiction into it. A type of nonfiction that I think I would be good at writing is conversational. I have always been really good at telling stories through dialogue. I believe I would be good at writing about topics such as events of importance in the past that I would be able to tie the dialogue into.