Carry On (A Beatles Fanfiction)

Afterword

Afterword:

Eight years ago, I was a thirteen year old, incredibly shy eighth grader. I struggled with social problems all of my school years and often hated school because of it. Enter my grade 8 teacher. I'd had him for 7th grade too and I adored him. In my elementary school, we had all our classes with this one teacher and while I was positively awful at anything to do with math or gym, I excelled in English and most importantly, Music.

That year, my teacher wanted us all to do a song report on a Beatles song. Now, I had heard of the Beatles, sure. But I never really had listened to them before. At first, I was at a loss, because I had no idea who this band really was and how I was supposed to write a report on a song I didn't even know. That night, I went home and asked my dad who The Beatles were. He recommended I YouTube the song Yesterday by them and maybe that song would be good for my report. So I did and that's when the love began. Watching that black and white, grainy video of Paul McCartney onstage, singing Yesterday was an entirely eye opening moment for me. I did my report on Yesterday and got 100% on it, believe it or not.

Paul was my favourite Beatle at first, but it slowly changed to John as I got older. Now of course, I love them all, but that's a side point. My teacher and I began this rapport after that, based solely off the Beatles. I was a bookworm and often showed up to school with yet another biography book on them. I downloaded all their music onto my little iPod Nano 2nd Generation (I know, right?) and I found myself through them.

It was then that this story began, the one you just finished reading. I'd never written a real story before, but I poured my heart and soul into a little story about a girl named Ashley who was the granddaughter of John Lennon. It was a lot different from this version, in the very first copy of it was maybe 12 chapters long and in it, Ashley knew who she was all along and wished her grandfather was alive like her best friend Sienna's. Then, it took a turn and I wrote about Sienna's cousin and Ashley's friend Amber, who lived in the States and was quite close to a mysterious old man who ran a guitar shop. (See where I'm going?) Through a series of events, Amber discovers her friend is really the supposedly dead John Lennon and he'd been hiding out and living a low profile for years. The ending involved a reunion with his family and that was about it. But, I didn't stop there, as I'm sure you're aware. Over the next few years, that little story turned into this full length fanfiction. (I say few years because there was a period of time I lost the original, but that's another story).

The one I'd love to thank in person would be my 8th grade teacher for introducing me to the band that has helped me through so much and made me who I am. I don't know if I'll ever see him again, but if it hadn't been for him introducing me to the Beatles and helping me learn more about them, then I wouldn't be here, writing this little afterword, after completing this story that's been almost a decade in the making. I want to thank YouTube too, for giving me endless playlists of writing music that helped me jump into Ashley's shoes as a character. And last, but certainly not least, I want to thank you readers for your continued support and patience these past 2 years while I was uploading to this site. I honestly never thought this would get that big of a reception. Silly me figured I was maybe just one of a handful of people in my generation who loved these guys. Clearly I was wrong, and I'm so glad that I was. Anyway, that's it from me. I hope you all enjoyed Carry On.