John

Hi! my name is John Dooley. For the people that don't know me, I may be the quiet kid who sits in the corner. But actually I'm really loud and expressive. Music is my passion and has been since I was little. I've been playing the drums since 4th grade have played for tons of different bands and music organizations over the years. I just recently picked up piano and bass guitar, and soon electric guitar as well (when i get enough money). I also am a big astronomy nerd, and really hope I can get a job for NASA or some university. So if you have any astronomy questions I could definitely help you out. And lastly, I really enjoy writing, which is why you are reading this and why I am in this class. I love it for all the cliche reasons, giving life and meaning to an empty page, giving joy and other emotions to others who read writing, and just simply because it's fun for me.

An Interview with John Dooley

Let me just say that I started this interview without even knowing John, but all in all I think we did a pretty good job.

CS: Do you have a specific place you write?

JD: No, not really, just somewhere comfy and quiet.

CS: Inspiration, Where does it come from?

JD: Experiences I’ve had and the people I know. I like to use them or their stories in my writing.

CS: Clichés you hate?

JD: I don’t have specific one but I hate having cliché language in my own writing.

CS: Pen or Pencil? Why?

JD: Pen. It has a better flow to it and feels more official.

CS: Favorite thing to write about?

JD: When it comes to poetry I like to write about nature and when it comes to fiction I like to take a darker more suspenseful side.

CS: Who do you admire as an artist?

JD: Disciple, they are a rock band that hasn’t sold out and they continue to produce original new sounding music. They haven’t gotten stuck inside a specific box, all of their albums sound different and I love that.

CS: Lover or fighter? (Had to slide one cliché question in there)

JD: Lover.

CS: Finish this sentence: Reality tv is…

JD: Sometimes cool and thought-provoking but usually just really dumb.

CS: Musical tastes?

JD: Rock, heavy metal, I’m a drummer so that’s what I really like to play. I’m also learning the piano and I play a little bit on the bass.

CS: Here’s a chance for you to give credit to someone who you believe never gets enough, Who? Why?

JD: I’d like to give credit to heavy metal music. Although most people write them off, they are actually quite talented musicians who have great chops on their instruments. They get a bad rap because of all the screaming and yelling, but the instrumentalists in a heavy metal band are extremely talented and they don’t get recognized for it.

Here is a short story I wrote. I had the idea for it late freshman year, but really refined it in creative writing 1 last year. I chose its setting to be Myrtle Beach, SC because my family goes on vacation there every year because I have relatives that live there, and I remember one year we had to evacuate because of an oncoming hurricane. I thought this would be a good idea for a short story and went on from there. Hope you like it!

== The weather reports stated that a destructive hurricane was heading straight through Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. “I’m not leaving my first house, my hopes and dreams, my first real life on my own to run away like some coward while everything is destroyed!” His house was a fairly small house, only one story with a basement and no garage, but he still wanted to protect it from the storm. == == After a little fussing, Smith sat down on the couch to think about what he could do to save his house from the storm. The hurricane that was expected was the strongest hurricane that has ever struck the area. Since Smith didn’t want to leave his house, he had no choice but to stay and wait out the storm, trying to protect his house. ==

== The storm was predicted to come the next day, so Smith had little time to fortify his house. He went out to his shed and retrieved some spare wood, a hammer, and nails and began boarding up the windows to his house. He left a peephole in the front and back windows so he could watch the storm when it came. He then went out to his driveway and put a cover over his car. He didn’t have a garage to put it in, and even though it wasn’t that fancy of a car he wanted to at least do something to it. Next he brought his T.V. into the basement and carefully wired it so he would be able to watch weather reports from the safety of underground. He also brought a flashlight and first aid kit in case of an emergency, and made a stockpile of snacks and drinks so he would be able to stay in the basement for as long as it was necessary. //I probably won’t have to hide in the basement,// he thought, //but at least I have I back-up plan if it gets too out of hand.// ==

== Smith finished his tending of the house a little late at night, so he went straight to bed. That night, he slept a restless sleep, even though he wasn’t nervous earlier, he was nervous now with the storm so near. He kept thinking about what the storm would be like, if the house would survive intact, and if he made the right decision to stay back. ==

== When he awoke the next morning, the sound of rain was already clattering against Smith’s roof. The storm was already there, and it wasn’t holding back. He got up and looked out the window, watching the drops pelt the side of the house, and the dark clouds descending in a vortex around him. He then studied himself in his reflection. He could see the fear and nervousness in his eyes. To him, he looked like a different man, tired and afraid. His dark brown hair matted down, his brown eyes bloodshot with nervousness. He hated looking this way, so pitiful, because he never thought of himself like that. ==

== He then turned and walked out of the room and headed for the basement where he stored the T.V. to watch the weather reports. This helped him calm down a little, but what fed his anxiety was the fact that he was alone. Everyone in the area had left, and he was the only one who stayed behind. Some people called him crazy for staying back, but Smith didn’t care. He just called them crazy for giving up so easily. But for Smith, there was no turning back now. ==

== The reports said that the storm had arrived; obviously it had. He watched as a weatherman was outside in the rain broadcasting to the studio, then suddenly the T.V. went black. The lights flickered then died out. “Oh, great!” he exclaimed. He fumbled around in the darkness, found his flashlight and flicked it on. Since the television wasn’t working, he decided that it was pointless to just sit down in the basement doing nothing. ==

== He climbed the cellar stairs and walked to his living room to look out the peephole he made in the back window. What he saw amazed him. He looked out into his backyard, and the sky was erupting with darks clouds. There were so many natural colors, the clouds dark grey, having lighter colored blue streaks where there were small slits in the clouds, and far off in the distance, a deep purple accentuated its aerie appearance. It was a magnificent sight that was beautiful, but at the same time menacing. ==

== He watched the trees shake wildly, and random objects were flying across the yard as if being thrown by some Godlike force. The sight of what was happening outside made him uneasy, but he was still curious about what was happening. He turned away from the window and decided to look through the window at the front of the house, to observe what was happening in the street and the neighboring houses. ==

== Smith approached the window and knelt down, eye level with the peephole and gazed in horror. The houses around him were being decimated. The wind conveying commodities as well as tree branches and other objects, only to collide into the houses with great force. Something in the distance glimmered, which caught smith's attention. He watched in awe as a car rolled down the street, like a tumbleweed, just rolling frictionless across the ground. He watched for a moment and soon realized that it wasn’t just any car; it was his car! The heap of sprawling metal with parts flying off in every which way suddenly made a sharp turn and headed straight for Smith. “Oh man….” He managed to choke out. He had very little time to react due to the rapid speed of the flying metal approaching him, so he turned and collapsed on the floor behind the window. The car struck the house, completely eradicating the wall it passed through and sailed right over Smith, who was then laying flat on the ground. Shards of glass from the window bounced everywhere around the room, cutting into Smith’s flesh. The wood from the wall and the boards he used in an attempt to block the window to protect him were completely obliterated, releasing splinters throughout the whole room adding to his wounds. Having passed through the wall, the car had reduced in speed, and rolled to the far wall at the other side of the room and came to a stop. ==

== “Well that’s not good," Smith exclaimed. Now Smith had an idea of what he got himself into. “Well what do I do now?” he asked himself aloud. He slowly climbed to his feet, pain in his legs quivering as he stood, and felt intense gushes of water coming through the opening to his house of where what just so recently been a wall. He tried to turn and run to the basement, but the overpowering wind made him struggle to even walk, and the glimmering shards of glass lodged in his legs did not contribute to his effort either.  ==

== He slowly inched his way to the cellar door. Struggling in agony of his injuries from the car, he found himself yelling, almost howling, in pain at the top of his lungs in a voice he didn’t recognize. Thoughts of death ran through his mind, but he didn’t give up. He fought in what was then a rage against the storm, and finally made it to the door. He grasped the knob and yanked it open. He clambered inside and struggled to pull the door against the strong wind. Using every ounce of energy he had, he closed the heavy door. He finally succeeded, the door slammed, and the wind came to a stop. He was finally free of the rain and the wind, but the sound of it still lingered like a ghost just waiting for him to come out. ==

== “Well, looks like I’ll have to use plan ‘B’ after all,” he said to himself. His legs felt unstable with fatigue after the strain that he had just put on them. He staggered down the steps, using the railing for support. When he got to the bottom he grabbed a spare blanket to soak up his wounds, tried his best to remove any glass still studded into his body, and settled himself on an old, beat up couch he kept in his basement. He couldn’t believe that something that horrifying could happen, and that there was nothing he could do to stop the rain and the bombarding debris. ==

== Smith then had a sudden loss of energy. He barely had any energy to begin with because of the lack of sleep he had the night before, and he hadn’t eaten anything earlier that day. He was so tired that he was just struggling to stay conscious. He laid his head back and closed his eyes for just a minute. It then turned into a deep sleep to compensate for the massive strain he put on his body to escape the storm. His sleep was a rehabilitating, dreamless sleep, which made him lose complete awareness of his surroundings. He dreamt for what seemed to him like days, but in reality was only hours. ==

== When he finally awoke, he found himself staring up at what looked like a clear sky. Now aware of his condition, he bolted upright and looked around. He was still in the basement, but it was covered in wreckage everywhere. When he looked up, he could see the sky. He was perplexed by this, and soon realized that the whole entire house that used to be sitting above him disappeared. He was sitting in a deep pit of debris of what used to be his beloved house. ==

== He silently stood up, tense with pain of his still throbbing injuries, and looked around for a way out. He found a pile of debris that he would be able to climb over and pull himself out. Struggling with the shrapnel of wood surrounding him, he very carefully climbed over the remains of his house, up and out of the basement pit. He stood upright in awe and disbelief; happy to have at least survived, but crushed that his house was gone. ==

== He slowly moved his eyes up to the sky, and was intrigued. Above him, he saw that the hurricane wasn’t directly over him anymore, yet he saw dark clouds resembling the horrific storm off in the distance in every direction. He then figured it out, and he felt a new wave of fear pass over him. ==