Young Writers Society

Beautiful. My eyes were literally glued to the screen. See, that's good writing. Not stories written by poor little fourteen year olds who think they're wonderful, about a girl being allowed onto some random ship and falling in love with the cabin boy, or the orphan brought up in the theatre making friends with the little African boy with an Italian name. Not poems about cutting yourself and watching the blood.
Something that sounds like real writing.


Although, I had a problem with one part:
[quote="Incandescence"]
All I saw was Vince lying in the snow, with blood spurting out of his head.quote]
Spurting, it just doesnt sound right. Not powerful enough I guess. Really, really weak.

I liked both of them. I'm really tired too so there's nothing major for me to say about them... I loved them.
*YAWNS*

Fantastic.

Stunning.

What can I even say? There's nothing I can even say. I liked Jimmy best.

Wow....
I'm amazed.
That was awesome!

The first one seems to beg to be put into present tense. Why? Because it's so pretty. I don't know why, but I think poetic stories should be in present and less poetic styles should be in past. That's my two cents anyway.

If you want to keep it in past, I would suggest using the imperfect instead of the preterite. The first one is so lulling and nice... that's what I think of when I think of "your voice."

The characters are also interesting. As a kid with parents like that, I can connect with him fairly well. I love the description of the mother, though I think 1940's music is not as good as say... some other periods of music before that.

In 1998 we posed in a picture for the Best Family Award.

Oh God...
Wow..in those few minutes, I seriously fell in love with Vince..it was like I knew him. Weird. And,
I hate death..I really do, but I love the bitter sweet way you potrayed it like,

I could tell by Vince's eyes that he wasn't dead. Instead, he looked as though he was shocked...

That really got me going and I was wanting more of Eric's describing almost
*refrains from jotting stuff down*
I also like how you didn't squash together the dialogue. But it was a little vague like,

He said, "First one back to the house gets my CD player."

I laughed, "You're on."

But somehow the vagueness prepared me for the ending. Also,
I see what you mean about the second part being better than the first.
I never really got who Jimmy was, and now that I've read the whole thing,
I'm kind of wishing there had been Vince's side of the story in there somewhere.
Overall though, this is probably the best thing I've read by you in the form of a story...
and I loved how you put it in the romantic section...Jesus Christ, you're amazing,
and so is Vince...(or was?) even though he's just a character.

Eric


We didn't want to move. It was our father's decision. Texas seemed unbearable. A land where people drifted and had a twang. It was repulsive. I had protested the move, but my brother, Vince, told me to calm down. Vince always knew what he was doing. He had a girlfriend and a sense of direction about him. Because of him, I was probably the most criminally advanced ninth-grader in the state of Nebraska. He had introduced me to speed when I was nine. By the time I was twelve, we were doing some heavy acid.

The evening before we left, Vince and I took our hits of acid, and went out back to the cemetery. It was snowing, so the sleek shine of the tombstones stood out more than usual. It could have been the acid. We made our way back to a small mausoleum. Inside it, we heard the light zephyrs from the north whispering to us. I asked my brother if he wanted to move.

"Don't worry about it, kid. Think Woodstock," is all he said. Woodstock was his dream. While we were not sixties-babies, Vince had always been in love with the idea of perfect communion. This is probably why his friends ranged from 4 to 81 in age. He was charming and, I know this is unusual for a boy to speak of his brother in this way, beautiful. His spine curved inward at just the right angle, and his dark hair brushed up again the side of his face. He frequently denied his own beauty. He said he found something repulsive in human architecture, but that the spirit compensated for what the physical lacked. It would not strike me as ironic until much later in my life that he lost his virginity at fourteen.

We stood there, shaking in that dank graveyard cellar, and let the acid run through us. The walls slowly came into better focus, and even the slightest movement -- a pebble falling -- caught my attention. I was not so unhip as to bring up the subject about moving again, but it plagued me on the inside. I so badly wanted to ask what he would do with Clare, his girlfriend, and everyone else. Maybe he would write them sometime and tell them of the dryness of the Texas' plains. I occupied my time thinking about these things.

An hour later, after sitting and silently discussing the snow, he offered me a pill. "What is it?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it," he told me. I trusted him, so I took it. I felt anxious for the next thirty minutes, cooing, "Oh wow," but he'd just say, "It hasn't happened yet. Give it some time." Finally, I saw what he meant. My senses were sharpened, and I became connected to the stone floor and the outside. When I walked, I was no longer on the ground, I was the ground itself. I was so fascinated by my new-found ability to perceive things, I did not notice Vince get up and go to the opening. When I saw him, I saw his dark, long hair on his shoulders and a light green shirt desperately clinging to his back, and the low-riding jeans. It was at that moment that I knew I loved my brother, despite knowing love was more than glances. He had always managed to calm me down, and he alone was my confidante.

"You feelin' it yet?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Awesome."

"When are we going back?" I asked, though he didn't hear me. At the precise moment of my questioning, the wind picked up so as to howl out my own voice. He turned and looked at me, grinning. He hugged me and asked me if I wanted to race. Though I did not know the exact coordinates of this event, I felt certain that with Vince I would be safe.

He said, "First one back to the house gets my CD player."

I laughed, "You're on."

He counted to three, and then we ran. I felt myself ease in front of his long, slender body, but I instantly had to slow down to dodge the headstones. And then I would catch up and pass him, but have to slow down shortly thereafter. So it went. Near the end, I saw a clearing through the trees, where there were no headstones, and I ran for it. I made it through them and through the bank -- which our father insisted on calling a large ditch -- to our glass, sliding door. I turned and saw him, grinning stupidly, running through the graveyard. I heard my father open the sliding door and stand next to me.

"Ready to go, sport?" he asked. It was as if he had forgotten my hatred of the move. As I opened my mouth to retort, something went wrong. My heightened sense felt a shift in the earth's atmosphere. I turned, too slow, to see Vince hit a tombstone and flip over, just as he neared the enbankment. I stood, petrified. My father began running, calling his name. I did not move, until a cold wind hit me. Then I slowly trudged over to my father, who was yelling frantically at me. I did not hear him. All I saw was Vince lying in the snow, with blood spurting out of his head. I saw the stains on the snow grow dark and ominous. In that moment, I felt the earth lose its gravity, I felt the ground slip away. I began crying, near my father. He was stroking Vince's hair, promising him everything would be fine. I could tell by Vince's eyes that he wasn't dead. Instead, he looked as though he was shocked, and had retreated inside himself to figure out the root-cause of his inner-turmoil. I wanted to reach out and touch him. I felt the desire to say something calm, but I did not. I sat there and watched my older brother vanish into the snow.