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The Exhausted Heroine's Inevitable Death, #365StrongStories 24
There comes a day when the heroine is no longer exhausted. After an arduous journey, she simply vanishes.
In her place, you get a crabby lump of protagonist. Creativity, passion, and proactivity have all given way to listless desperation. The new character is simply named “Exhaustion” because no one has the energy to argue or come up with something better.
It’s nearly impossible to write a story about Miss Exhaustion. She’s drained of dreams because everything is so dreamlike. She doesn’t think she has the resources to make a single useful change. She prone to conflict, but it’s all petty and dull stuff that everyone has heard too many times before.
And yet, Exhaustion loves story.
She binges on Mad Men instead of listening to thought-provoking podcasts. She lets the kids watch a movie. And then all the cruddy straight to video releases in the series too. She rereads paperbacks that comforted her in high school and every chapter is a surprise because her memory is shot by this chronic, crushing fatigue.
Exhaustion find it impossible to write a story. Her own story isn’t worth a second glance. But at least she has gratitude for all the authors and showrunners and exuberant children who fill the days and nights with narratives that give her hope to awaken to another day.
Every Family Story Is About One Thing, #365StrongStories 22
“Mama! Why are you crying about that letter from Tatu?” My perceptive first-grader recognizes my grandfather’s handwriting. Sending clippings from the Wall Street Journal, prayers and pictures of saints, and packets of stamps for my husband’s inherited collection, Grandpa is our most faithful correspondent.
Today, it’s a half-page ad from the New York Times. Grandpa would like to buy me an audio course on storytelling, if I’m interested. Even as I tell the story now, the tears well up again.
Marketers and people who help you build online visibility like to expose your pain by asking “what do you do when the only person who reads your blog is your mom?” It’s rather a rude question and, since my mother died in ‘09, I especially loath that line. Perhaps now I’ll merrily substitute “your grandfather” and forgive the speaker for being so glib.
You’ll hear different perspectives on “what makes a good story.” Conflict and tension are two of the more common answers. To me, one thing makes a story compelling and meaningful: transformation.
A good story is one that changes the reader in some small way.
A story about how nice it is to get gifts from my grandpa isn’t exactly wrought with tension. Admittedly, I wondered if it were fair to ask him to spend his money on one more piece of content I barely have the time to consume. But that evaporated quickly. If you’re a 37 year-old woman with a letter-writing, blog-reading grandfather who thinks of your business and your passion while he peruses his daily paper, you say “yes, please.” You then compose a very nice thank you note complete with pictures drawn by the great grand daughters and you gratefully make the time to listen and learn.
Instead, let’s focus on transformation.
The story of any family is one of constant change. The endless rising and ebbing of generations. The perpetual fluidity of roles that only children get to ignore.
Now, when we’re navigating a crazy supermarket parking lot during a Saturday visit, I’m watching for Grandpa’s footing as much as I’m making sure the kids don’t dart into traffic. We have all been transformed, but then, that’s where all the meaningful stories come from.
Guess Who Seth Godin Calls “The Best Storytellers” #365StrongStories 21
“Who are the best storytellers?” After a serious binge on this particular podcast, I knew this was the host’s pet question. As ever, he indicated to the guest that he wanted a “creative” answer that would challenge the assertion that marketers are the greatest storytellers. (Only on a marketing podcast does anyone assume “marketers are the best storytellers” is the most interesting answer).
Seth Godin, the man behind All Marketers are Storytellers and so many other brilliant books, broke the mold (as usual). According to Mr. Godin, the best storytellers are:
Mothers.
The host spluttered. He dissolved into nervous laughter. He tried to explain Seth’s answer for him and talk about how mothers are empathetic and caring. Then he trailed off about how he wasn’t going to get all “soft and fuzzy.”
Seth didn’t go there. Instead, he described mothers as people who devote 15 to 20 years crafting a human being. They don’t use tools or hacks learned at a conference. They merely set standard and live a life that leaves a story behind.
On behalf of the mothers out there - those of us who know we’re storytellers and those of us who haven’t discovered that yet - I thank you Mr. Godin, from the bottom of my maternal but not-so-soft-and-fuzzy heart.
The greatest story you’ll ever tell is the story that you live and devote to someone else. This is the foundation of my approach to telling stories that connect.
The Gift of the First Reader, #365Strong Stories 20
Story has been trying to find me all day, but I’m too tired to draw together myself together and let narrative arrange my scattered pieces. And so, I flip through the books that crowd my office couch hoping someone else’s words can conjure the magic that eludes me.
Just don’t pretend to know more about your characters than they do, because you don’t. Stay open to them. It’s teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It’s that simple.
My copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird was a used one, apparently. It’s so easy to lose track of how books find us these days. Generally, it’s enough that they find us at all. The harder thing is finding time for them, of course.
The pen that underlined that passage was black and inky, just like mine. I assumed the marks were my own until I noticed how straight the lines were. When juggling a nursing child or reading in bed by flashlight, all a mother can hope for are bold zigzags that don’t obscure the text too much.
And as exhaustion-warped as my memory is, I know I’ve never read that paragraph. A stranger had absorbed this book and let it go long before it made its way to me.
These days, I have little time for characters. My writing is focused on the “you” of the reader and the “I” that strives to tell good stories.
I do, however, try to make as many tea parties as I can. And I am as kind as I can be to the dolls at the table, and under the table, and even those who gouge the small of my back when I roll on them in the night.
Tonight, when I’m too weary to be the writer, I can be grateful for Lamott’s story and the book’s mysterious first owner for teaching me to be a better mama.
Winter Called: It's Coming, #365StrongStories 17
The wise have long been counseling the headstrong heroes. Warriors have fallen with a final warning on their lips:
Winter is coming.
Of course, Game of Thrones viewers have known something nasty was on its way. Over several seasons, we’ve watched the threat from the North take shape. All that stands between the innocent citizenry and zombie army is one last great wall.
Today, the leadership at our house got the call: Winter is coming this way too.
“I want a cell phone! Kids at school have them!”
(You can try to imagine that this was gently and logically delivered, but you’d be living in a fantasy world more mystical than Westeros.)
Everyone who watches plugged-in parents of small children have seen this coming. Technical forces whose power we don’t completely understand have us under siege. And they’re coming for our kids.
We’d been warned. We’d been talking about how we’d prepare. But there was always a more immediate dragon to slay and we assumed winter wouldn’t come to us ‘til she at least knew her multiplication tables.
It is not time for the great battle. Not yet. Queen Mama and King Dad still have a mighty arsenal excuses - all of which begin and end with “you’re six!” And our words still have more power than her demands.
We will join forces to maintain our girl’s childhood. Finally, we know it’s not just rumor and paranoia. It’s just the first concerted attack of our wall.
I’d love to say we were better prepared.