BRILLIANT!

I love creativity. LOVE. When something is unique and different I generally tend to connect with it. Now, that's not to say that I like difference for difference's sake. I like it when it is out of the box, and it has a point to make. It has to make me think. for example:

-I hate most pop music. But when someone writes something with a unique choir progression and a phrase that is more than just the same four measures over and over, I love it.

-I really like a good movie. but it has to keep me guessing, and it has to have a good message attached. I recently watched a movie with some friends and didn't like it. Yes, the ending was a surprise, but that's not enough. Every other scene I announced an event that would happen soon, and five or ten minutes later it happened. My friend's dad kept asking if I had seen the movie. Nope. It was just so guessable! Be original people!

-People might not know this about me, but I love reading. I'm not the best writer, but I love a good story. And I have such a respect for people who can come up with their own story and make it work. Didn't much like the Eragon series, cause I just thought there were too many similarities to other fiction writers. I actually only read the first book and half of the second. I just couldn't stomach it anymore. But when someone makes a world that is just impossible for me to forget or hard to doubt, I love it.

So, here I want to pay homage to something I consider brilliant. Someone took something well known and transformed it into something else, while also at the same time sticking it to the man (I am secretly very rebellious). My friend Sam Benson showed it to me, as it was his cousin who wrote it. SO worth the read. Enjoy!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Effective Writing: The New Spanish 1

So... I dropped Spanish 1 at the semester... I couldn't take it any more. But never fear-- the public education system has set me up with another ridiculous class. My effective writing class is taught by an old man who used to teach German 1&2, Mr. Brown (he prefers to be called Herr Brown). My latest work of art really captivated him. He was so moved, in fact, that he had to read it to the class. Here it is:

Journey

A small-town girl, living in a lonely world, was waiting outside the train station late at night. She wanted to get away from her confined community; she took the midnight train going anywhere. A city boy, born and raised in South Detroit, was waiting outside another train station. Like the girl, he needed to get away from the hurried city life that he has been accustomed to his whole life. He took a train departing at midnight to anywhere.
After they both had endured long train rides, they arrived at the same destination. not knowing where they were, they tried to find a place to go. Strangers, waiting, they walked separately up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching desperately for someplace to go in the night. The streetlights above them lit the pair, who were living just to find emotion hiding somewhere in the night. The girl, desperately trying to find a place to sit in anguish, stumbled into a nearby lounge. The boy, having the same urge as the girl, followed close after her.
At a first glance, the lounge was nothing to speak highly of. The boy and the girl, being outsides, seemed a little out of place from the shabby room they had just entered. There was a singer sitting on a stage in the dimly-lit and smoky room. The room, smelling of wine and cheap perfume, had a few people entranced by the singer. Perhaps for a smile, the singer would humor them and share the night with one of the enchanted men.
Another set of businessmen, behind the eager watchers, sat gambling with one another.The boy and girl could tell by the look of the businessmen's suits and loosened ties that they had worked hard to get their fill. The pair could assume that the businessmen had mundane jobs. Not getting any sort of excitement, they just wanted a thrill, paying anything to roll the dice just one more time. Of course with gambling, some will win, and some will lose. However, with some of those businessmen it seemed like winning was not the objective. Not caring if they were the winners, they were born to sing the blues. The misfit small-town and big-city couple felt as if they had just stepped into a movie-- not just any movie, but a small clip on a reel going on and on.
"Don't stop believing," the girl on stage sang wispily,"Hold on to that feeling." Although this was the message that the pair of outsiders needed to hear, it would fall on deaf ears. Wallowing in their own self-pity, they may never go back to the lives they once had had. They were trapped in their own minds, searching for something that could not be found.


If you don't get it: