Story Of The Month: February 2006:
This months story was the winner of the 'Best Paul' catagory at the 2005 BFFD awards. I've Just Seen A Face: The Sequal is a follow up to an earlier story, which was predictably titled, I've Just Seen A Face. The prequal was also nominated for the 'Best Paul' award, but, perhaps unusually, it was the sequal which was the clear winner.
Written by McCartney8897, the prequal saw the beginnings of a relationship between Paul and Olivia. In this story, thier relationship continues and grows, through both good and bad times, but will thier worlds proove too different for them to remain together?
As well as winning the 'Best Paul' catagory, I've Just Seen A Face: The Sequal was nominated for Story Of The Month by reader, Heather. Heather commented;
This is one very good story It deals with a girl named Olivia and she is continuing her relationship with Paul McCartney.This is the sequal to I've Just Seen a Face the first of McCartney8897 best works.
As far as my story goes, it’s a simple yet complicated romance. The romance you see in movies is highly over-rated and most the time not true. I wanted to give the sense of a loving relationship throughout the hard times of The Beatles. Olivia sees them when they are first on the Ed Sullivan Show and thinks that they are the most perfect, fun, nicest and simplest of people. However, when she gets the chance of a lifetime and meets them, she falls for not only one, but two, while currently in a relationship with another and experiences their ‘not so perfect’ lives. My inspiration for the story came from reading other peoples fan fics, making me want to write my own, but have it not totally fiction. In the beginning I added a lot of fiction, things I saw on TV, in my dreams, things from my childhood, and things I just made up. But as the story progressed I wanted it to be more realistic and that’s when I began to cut off on the fiction and put in more real life situations that could not only occur to anyone, but things that DID occur in the Beatles. As far as the characters go, Olivia Newton is basically myself. Because she’s made up, her frame of thinking is almost identical to mine, as well as her looks. Also, her friends are played off of real friends of mine or people that I know. The Beatles are obviously from The Beatles and I tried to make each one the way they really were, by studying up on them and getting their habits down.
I think a lot of people misinterpret the lives of the Beatles. They think it’s all wonderful and pleasurable and they had no problems — like Olivia thought in the beginning. But when you really have a close look at their lives, as a group and individually, there’s much more and throughout my story I wanted to show that to people and show how they worked through different situations. I’ve been a fan for about 6 years now, and I’ve read and seen SO many books and [watched] DVD’s on them, in which I’ve learned so much that I would have never guessed and in the end it has me giving more respect to The Beatles as a whole and apart, than I did in the beginning--so that was a big influence on the story. I also played in romance just because I love it and wanted to show the hardships of it and how that makes us grow closer together. The stories that really pushed me to finally just do it and write my own were ‘[The Beatles:] Live at 12 Cold Creek Street’ and ‘Days In the Life’. [Both by Tina Kukla].
I chose Paul as my main character just because he’s my favorite (not to knock the others cuz I love them all)! He’s the most friendly and well rounded of the four and I just love his personality. I believe that I nailed him as a person fairly well, though as always I can’t get him perfect because I simply don’t know him. But as I mentioned I’ve studied up quite a bit on him in the Beatles and him alone—his talents, interests besides music, beliefs, humor, etc—so I believe he’s fairly close to the way he would be in real life. It’s funny you ask what I think Paul would say if he read it because I was just talking about that recently. I actually have no idea. For the first half, I think he might be a bit weirded out because they is a lot of fantasy and fiction, but come the sequel, I think he may actually like it and find that him as a person in my story is much the way he is in real life, and that the story actually contains quite a bit of non-fiction and true events that occurred throughout his life with and out of The Beatles.
I actually never thought of myself as a writer. I always received good grades and good comments on school papers, and always received A’s in English, but I'd never thought about it. This is actually not my first story. I wrote one when I was about 12, then I moved [on] to write a short Monkees Story about 3 years ago, and now this. I don’t really have any ambitions per say as a writer; it’s more of a hobby for me. I really enjoy doing it, and after these awards and comments from people saying I’m good at it, it makes me more motivated to keep it up. Thanks everybody!
When I awoke I could feel a light breeze on my cheek and the sound of a dog barking. I just figured I left my window open (although I didn’t remember opening it to begin with). It felt nice, so I just moved positions. As I moved something didn’t feel right. My bed was suddenly hard and my pillow felt like someone’s lap. And instead of sheets, there felt to be an arm resting on my side. I opened my eyes and straight ahead of me was a deck and fence, with grass and bushes all over the place. I was outside! I looked down and my stomach slowly and saw a hand lightly wrapped around my side and stomach. I was just about to scream when I caught a glimpse of the person’s bracelet. It was silver and had the word “McCartney” on it. Relieved I turned to see Paul sleeping and a little girl playing with her dog in the background next to a red house. I smiled seeing Paul napping. He was so adorable and as many times as I’ve said this, I still can’t get over it. He was handsome like a man and as cute as a little boy. Looking ahead I noticed we were on someone’s porch. I slowly rubbed Paul’s arm to wake him up. He moved a bit but didn’t wake. I sat up moving his arm, but still keeping hold of it. I turned to sit on the other side of the bench facing him, watching the little girl play with her dog. After a few minutes of saying Paul’s name and shaking him slightly he opened his eyes. He turned to look at me…….We laid on the bed and I wrapped my right arm around Paul resting my head on his chest. He held my hand with his left, and his right lay firmly yet softly on my back, caressing it slowly. I closed my eyes one last time, swaying up and down to Paul’s chest. This time it put me right to sleep.
Many thanks to McCartney8897 for her co-operation and permission to use her story. Thanks also to Heather for nominating this story.
