Nostalgia

Hey all,
This is my friends story. I told her how great the site is, and she wanted to see herself. She is signing up soon, but i decided to post it up. Thanks in advance.



He tells me that I can choose one of 100 melodies. He fast talks about online songs, dragging them to your phone, virtual sound – he goes on. His voice is grandiose and impossible to understand. “See, if you have a mega-favorite tune, it’s no problem . . .” His fingers twirl like iceskaters over the yellow gold buttons. “Whoosh, Pa-dah, whoosh-pa-dah, . .” “A windy sound,” the salesman purrs. But my gaze drifts away from the slimfit, trim phones to the window outside. My eyes focus intensely on the cool, white November light coming through the storefront glass. It is a lusterless, opaque November sky, typical of wintry days. A Vienna, wintry day, I think.

Sitting on an oak kitchen stool, the year before, I had just put the final polish on the parquet floor of our Vienna flat. We were waiting for realtors to arrive the next morning; they would rent or sell our beloved home of 9 years. Nostalgically, I stepped outside to the stone balcony surrounding our penthouse, our “castle in the woods.”. Though it was late fall, the scent of lavender rose from the window boxes. Pansies, paler but holding fast to their orange, eggplant, mustard dresses, lay in their summer boxes, reminding me of glorious summer days. Those days, which had opened with a pale budding blue sky, and closed with a fiery sunset.
Now the room was empty. Only two remaining chandeliers caught the reflection from the white pearly sky outside.

At night, our balcony was another private world. The inky silence of the woods in one direction, contrasted grandly with the twinkling lights of the city of Vienna to the North. The sparkle of the Millenium Tower on the Danube and the crown of the ferris wheel-- the Riesenrad-- were markers in our night constellation.

Remembering a past New Year’s Eve, five years before, when we and guests had waltzed out to the balcony. Snow blanketed the tiles. There was frosted ice on the rails. Franz, our neighbor, held his two-year old, snuggled in a blanket, and danced to the Blue Danube. It had been the annual celebration in Vienna, when at precisely midnight, the bells of St. Stephen’s Cathedral pealed out with joy. All over Vienna, from the Woods, from the City, and in local back gardens, fireworks did their dances, leaping higher into the inky sky. The strings of the Vienna Philharmonic, romantically beckoned us with the melody An den Schoener Blauer Donau. Another New Year was heralded by this same nostalgic melody on the radio, inviting everyone to cheer “Guten Rutsch!” The gleeful shouting of friends echoed in my ears.

Now, twirling around in the silent spaces of the balcony, I got this big feeling, simple but exalted: the flat is a princess. How I longed to take her for one more dance. Feel her gloved satin hand within mine.

I reflected on a recently read novel. The heroine is considering dramatic transformations in her life: “Now it is time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. “ I wondered if the author of those words had ever left a place like Vienna?

“Bu-bam, bu-bam, who-o-o” flowed the swooshy sounds of an ambient track. A phone riff resembling Boards of Canada drizzled from a doll-sized phone. The salesman wants me to purchase it. I am distracted by a father and two teens behind me. A stacotto voice: “Uh, Da-ad, how about this one?” A fifteen-year-old girl, clutching a silvery pink phone. She blurts out, “You can use i-chat and google map on this, then send pix out.” Her Dad grunts, “Uh huh.” He is fingering a GPS system on the wall, and tries to test the voices of the map readers. The younger teen, a boy of 14, twirls his fingers rapidly over the tiny keys of a miniature controller. His eyes sparkle. He, too, is caught in a self-absorbed electronic moment. I glance down at my wrist, onto a non-existent watch. “Oops, sorry but I have to go,”excusing myself from the salesman. I step outside to the curb, where the air is clear.

So much dashing, so much click-clack activity and gotta-do things. Do we allow ourselves enough time to enjoy the day, rather than chasing after ways to be entertained? “Something that was beautiful. . . to turn into something else that is beautiful?” Was it possible? Only time would tell. Perhaps the vibrant summer pansies would appear again in their orange, yellow, lavender dress colors. But this time they would be draping from baskets, gracing a white porticoed Larchmont house. And their leaves and petals would be playfully pushed by the wind coming from Long Island Sound. The breeze would have a rhythm. A rhythm of
Strauss, of Viennese waltzes. I would wait and see.

If your friend writes like this often, you should ask her to join. That was flawless.

Thanks for the positive feedback. Anyone else have any constructive critcism?

elements wrote:Hey all,
This is my friends story. I told her how great the site is, and she wanted to see herself. She is signing up soon, but i decided to post it up. Thanks in advance.

Hey there Elements! I'm June, and I'm going to review this for you. It's a very brilliant piece; there are no major flaws here at all, but! I do have a few corrections . (I'm an instructor here, so it's part of my job to shred work up, ha)

{Also! I must say quickly that we have a 2:1 policy here, which simply means that for every one piece of work you post, you should have completed two reviews prior to your submission [A review is simply what I'm doing for you here ] and you can make up the two reviews whenever you can. The sooner, the better}

First off: Go tell your friend she's an amazing writer, and she should join this place because it's where amazing people belong, haha. Here we go:

He tells me that I can choose one of 100 melodies. He fast talks about online songs, dragging them to your phone, virtual sound – [1]he goes on. His voice is grandiose and impossible to understand. [2] “See, if you have a mega-favorite tune, it’s no problem . . .” His fingers twirl like iceskaters [3] over the yellow gold buttons. [4]“Whoosh, Pa-dah, whoosh-pa-dah, . .” “A windy sound,” the salesman purrs. But my gaze drifts away from the slimfit, trim phones to the window outside. My eyes focus intensely on the cool, white November light coming through the storefront glass. It is a lusterless, opaque November sky, typical of wintry days. A Vienna, wintry day, I think.

[1] -- Not a major error at all, and seriously it doesn't really matter . I just obsess a bit over grammar, structure, punctuation and such, so, that's why I'm pointing this out: A dash (-- or ▬) is used to show a sudden break in a conversation. It is not to be confused with or replaced with a hyphen (-).

[2] -- Always begin dialogue on a new line, unless it comes after speaker tags. Let me show you:

She walked to the window. "Yes Mother," she said, "It will be done."

The break (new line/enter key) should come after "window."

[3]-- "Iceskaters" is properly two words; ice skaters. However, I can see this written as one word for a certain effect, so whether it's fixed or not, it's great.

[4] -- Dialogue/Quoted stuff -- put it on a new line. It makes the piece much, much easier to read. Also! Unless someone is saying this "Whoosh, Pa-dah," you don't need to have it in quotation marks; you can simply italicize it, and you'll be great.

I absolutely love the imagery used here. It's -- for lack of a better word-- beautiful.

Sitting on an oak kitchen stool, the year before, I had just put the final polish on the parquet floor of our Vienna flat. We were waiting for realtors to arrive the next morning; they would rent or sell our beloved home of 9 years. Nostalgically, I stepped outside to the stone balcony surrounding our penthouse, our “castle in the woods.”.[1] Though it was late fall, the scent of lavender rose from the window boxes. Pansies,[2] paler but holding fast to their orange, eggplant, mustard dresses, lay in their summer boxes, reminding me of glorious summer days. Those days, which had opened with a pale budding blue sky, and closed with a fiery sunset.
Now the room was empty. Only two remaining chandeliers caught the reflection from the white pearly sky outside.

[1] -- You don't have to put "castle in the woods" in quotation marks, you can simply italicize it. (I know, the formatting here on YWS requires you to use the BBCode to make it work). It only requires one period, which can be put inside of the quotation marks.

[2] -- Read this sentence aloud! It kind of stumbles slightly, you know? The "Pansies, paler..." is kind of a hard sentence to interpret, you know? Perhaps clarify this... maybe "paling pansies"?

[Elements, tell your friend that she has absolutely beautiful imagery working here]

At night, our balcony was another private world. The inky silence of the woods in one direction, contrasted grandly with the twinkling lights of the city of Vienna to the North. The sparkle of the Millenium [1]Tower on the Danube and the crown of the ferris wheel-- the Riesenrad-- were markers in our night constellation.

[1] -- I believe you meant the word, Millennium, instead of "Millenium"? Not a major error typo/spelling monsters love to attack us writers.

Remembering a past New Year’s Eve, five years before, when we and guests had waltzed out to the balcony. Snow blanketed the tiles. There was frosted ice on the rails. Franz, our neighbor, held his two-year old, snuggled in a blanket, and danced to the Blue Danube. It had been the annual celebration in Vienna, when at precisely midnight, the bells of St. Stephen’s Cathedral pealed out with joy. All over Vienna, from the Woods, from the City, and in local back gardens, fireworks did their dances, leaping higher into the inky sky. The strings of the Vienna Philharmonic, romantically beckoned us with the melody An den Schoener Blauer Donau. Another New Year was heralded by this same nostalgic melody on the radio, inviting everyone to cheer “Guten Rutsch!” The gleeful shouting of friends echoed in my ears.

Watch the usage of repetition in this piece! I notice the words "nostalgic" and "balcony" appear more than once in here. Lots of times, people don't like it. I personally don't mind it too much, but finding a synonym might please more people, dear.

Now, twirling around in the silent spaces of the balcony, I got this big feeling, simple but exalted: the flat is a princess. How I longed to take her for one more dance. Feel her gloved satin hand within mine.

I reflected on a recently read novel. The heroine is considering dramatic transformations in her life: “Now it is time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. “ [1] I wondered if the author of those words had ever left a place like Vienna?

[1] No space between the words a character' speaks and the quotation marks that close it .

“Bu-bam, bu-bam, who-o-o” [1]flowed the swooshy sounds of an ambient track. A phone riff resembling Boards of Canada drizzled from a doll-sized phone. The salesman wants me to purchase it. I am distracted by a father and two teens behind me. A stacotto voice: “Uh, Da-ad, how about this one?” A fifteen-year-old girl, clutching a silvery pink phone. She blurts out, “You can use i-chat and google map on this, then send pix out.” Her Dad grunts, “Uh huh.” He is fingering a GPS system on the wall, and tries to test the voices of the map readers. The younger teen, a boy of 14, twirls his fingers rapidly over the tiny keys of a miniature controller. His eyes sparkle. He, too, is caught in a self-absorbed electronic moment. I glance down at my wrist, onto a non-existent watch. “Oops, sorry but I have to go,”excusing myself from the salesman. I step outside to the curb, where the air is clear.

[1] Because no definite character is speaking these words, they don't need to be in quotation marks. You can/should italicize them, and reword the following sentence to flow-- perhaps: "The swooshy sounds of an ambient track flowed from..."

[•] Remember! Dialogue must always begin on a new line. They say "new paragraph" because it's proper to indent .

So much dashing, so much click-clack activity and gotta-do things. Do we allow ourselves enough time to enjoy the day, rather than chasing after ways to be entertained? [1] “Something that was beautiful. . . to turn into something else that is beautiful?” Was it possible? Only time would tell. Perhaps the vibrant summer pansies would appear again in their orange, yellow, lavender dress colors. But this time they would be draping from baskets, gracing a white porticoed [2]Larchmont house. And their leaves and petals would be playfully pushed by the wind coming from Long Island Sound. The breeze would have a rhythm. A rhythm of
Strauss, of Viennese waltzes. I would wait and see.

[1] Remember, dialogue on a new line (I've become a broken record in saying that )

[2] Because "porticoed" is not actually a term, you should hyphenate the "ed" on the end-- "portico-ed" so that the reader knows that you are using informal/improper wording there.



[-- Overall --]


Overall, this piece was breathtakingly beautiful. It was excellent; superior. I mean, the imagery was so vivid, so perfect. It was such a refreshing read. It left me wanting more-- even if this is the end of this piece, I would definitely love to read more by this author.

I love how she was able to take a common scene, that almost didn't relate to nature, and reflect upon nature in a way that shows the reader the beauty of life. (Am I making sense? )

There were no major errors; the only thing I was able to touch on here was punctuation and structure; it was very well written, no grammar flaws and very little spelling mistakes.

Tell your friend that she has an amazing talent. This was very poetic, while at the same time, it was superb and simplistic.

I hope I wasn't too harsh on you


I loved it; a perfect 10/10 and gold star .


Welcome to YWS! I hope to see some of your work around here, Elements .


Best --

June