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She saw something at the water's edge, and . . . 

Finish this sentence and write a story totaling 500 words by 10:00 pm tonight and send it to The Drum's Zip-Code Stories project with WBUR. That's a rate of 45 words an hour, from the time your friendly correspondent is writing this post. Easy!

Abby Holtzman just graduated from Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts and will be attending Swarthmore College in the fall. The Drum was fascinated by her Senior Year Project on Storytelling and the Search for Self, and asked her to write about it for us.

High School, for me, was not the greatest thing since sliced bread

Ah, summer! The season of open windows. You’re in traffic heading to the shore, and all you can hear is the thumping bass from the car in the next lane over. You’re at your desk trying to work, but the people in the next building are holding Hawaiian Happy Hour, and the ukulele music is as loud as their shirts. You’re sitting at a sidewalk cafe to revise your latest short story, but you keep overhearing conversations from the crowds passing by.

Every city, like every person, has a unique voice. Floating on top of the physical setting, there’s a landscape of sound. That’s what I try to catch in Stories on the Street. I want to capture not only the particular qualities of individual voices, but also the sound-texture of a place.