[stylist] {Spam?} Re: {Spam?} Novel excerpt

[Shelley Alongi]

Hi Alyssa I read this chapter and liked it very much. I will take a look at it later on today and give you some more feedback. Thank you for sharing.

Shelley, Queen of Bells Out!

See Trespasser, my first published novel at lulu.com
http://www.lulu.com/Queenofbells712

> On Jul 25, 2016, at 4:23 PM, Alyssa Frierson via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> I'm not super active on this list but enjoy seeing other people's
> writing. I thought I'd share a bit of a novel I'm working on. The
> first chapter is pasted below as well as attached as a Word document.
> I'm not sure if one method is preferred over another. I'd appreciate
> any feedback anyone might be willing to give.
> Thank you.
> 
> Alyssa
> 
> After the Hurt Runs too Deep
> Chapter One
> Brakes didn’t sound like angry violins anymore. Olivia Lawrence
> fingered the ballerina charm on her bracelet, took a deep breath, and
> willed herself to think of something else. She heard the vehicle
> peeling away, racing down the street behind the theatre.
> “Ready?” Her sister, Paige, appeared beside her. The light in this
> back room of the theatre was dim, making the beige carpet look
> chocolate brown, but she could see Paige holding her violin.
> Olivia nodded.
> “Are you okay?”
> Olivia swallowed and picked up her guitar. “Yeah,let’s do it.” She
> followed Paige to the stage wings, and they locked pinkies for luck as
> they stepped on stage.
> Olivia didn’t notice the size of the crowd until after they’d played
> three or four songs. When she looked out, there were no more than
> twenty-five people sitting in the first five or six rows. Was this
> normal? Did Mr. Douglas always have such a small audience in his
> theatre? Or was it because it was the middle of the week? Was this all
> six months in New York was going to get them? She kept playing; she
> had to sing her heart out as if the audience was standing room only.
> She let herself imagine the room full of people. Way in the back, she
> saw a face she’d almost forgotten. She took a breath and strummed a
> final chord. Don’t let them see. The applause was quiet, reminding her
> that the room was not full of people and none of the faces were
> familiar.
> She let out a breath and glanced at Paige as she started finger
> picking the chords to a Judy Collins song. Whatever fears she'd had
> moments before melted away as she concentrated on the notes and on
> Paige’s harmony.
> "Thank you," Paige said into her microphone. She smiled out at the
> audience. "We're going to take a short intermission. Since this show
> is all about the songs we grew up with, we'd like to know what songs
> you grew up with. There's a box and some pens and paper up front here,
> and during intermission we'd love it if you wrote some of your
> favorite songs down and left them in the box. Near the end of
> intermission, we'll take a look at what you wrote, and we'll try to
> perform some of them for you in the next act."
> Paige set the microphone in its stand, and Olivia led her offstage.
> "Hey, did you notice there were a lot of older people in the
> audience," Olivia asked when they were backstage again. She shivered.
> The air was up way too high, even if it was summer. She wondered if
> any of the audience members were cold, too.
> "Yeah, I think I saw one guy who looked like he was under forty. Do
> you think they'll request a bunch of songs we don't know?" Paige sat
> on a carpet-covered bench, took off her left shoe, and rubbed her
> foot. Some of her sandy brown bangs fell over her eyes; the hair spray
> she’d applied earlier was losing its hold.
> Olivia never understood why people covered indoor benches with carpet.
> It didn’t make them any more comfortable to sit on, though she guessed
> it did prevent people from getting splinters, and maybe it looked
> nice. This one just made it blend into the beige surroundings. She
> hadn’t seen many church pews in her life, but she knew they were
> sometimes covered with carpet or at least cushioned. Cushioned benches
> made sense. The pews in the church where… She swallowed, pushing away
> the rest of the thought, and answered Paige’s question. "I hope not.
> You never know, though. That’s part of the fun of asking for
> requests.”
> A few minutes later, she slipped back on stage and took the papers
> from the box on the piano. She smiled out at the handful of people
> still sitting in their seats before she hurried back to Paige with the
> papers in her hand, declaring, "There were only five slips in the
> box."
> Paige took a sip of water and screwed the cap onto her bottle.
> "Anything we know?"
> Olivia looked through the selection quickly. "No…Do you know this
> one?" She held out one of the pieces of paper.
> Paige looked at it. “No.”
> Olivia took the next one and held it out to Paige. “This one?”
> Paige shook her head.
> Olivia showed her one more piece of paper. Paige looked at it and
> laughed. "Oh my God."
> "I know, but there aren’t any others that we both know." She handed
> the other slips of paper to her sister.
> Paige looked at the other requests and nodded. "'There's a Hole in the
> Bucket' it is, I guess."
> "I guess." Olivia said, sighing. She took a drink of water.
> She picked up her guitar and started to leave when Paige stopped her.
> "Wait, I have an idea. Go out and introduce it, and I'll come out when
> I'm ready."
> "What are you doing?"
> "You just play Liza and leave the rest to me."
> With some hesitation, Olivia went onstage and stood at her microphone.
> “Hello, everyone. I’m glad to see you all came back,”—she smiled
> sheepishly—“We’re going to start out with one of your requests. Paige
> and I grew up with this song. Our grandparents had an RV, and we used
> to go camping with them in Sewell, New Jersey.” Paige hadn’t said how
> long she needed, so Olivia decided to ramble a little to give her
> time. “We stayed at this old campground where my mom and her brother
> camped when they were kids. It was kind of this family-oriented, um,
> lovely small campground in the Delaware River region. We were a
> musical family, so we sang songs around the campfire. We sang this one
> all the time.” She sat at the small piano on stage left and played a
> few chords. Paige came out in a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt,
> carrying a large red plastic bucket. They started singing the song,
> and Paige immediately got into character. Olivia grinned and tried to
> act into it, too, by giving Paige pencils and rolling up pieces of
> paper to fix the hole in the bucket. The audience chuckled and
> applauded.
> <After The Hurt Runs Too DeepCh1.docx>
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