Getting Started on Stories

I spent the weekend working on a new story. It's one I've been planning to work on for a long time. I circled around it over and over again. I made notes, I thought. But it wasn't until I had a deadline of sorts that I finally really started it. I'm meeting with a storytelling friend today to work on our work, so I wanted more than just the idea for the story rattling around in my head.

I know the circling around, the notes, the thinking are all important parts of the process (at least my process), but I know I'd be more productive if I could cut to the chase, as they say, and just get to it! You see, the circling around includes cleaning my desk and dusting the living room, the note writing includes making out grocery lists, and the thinking includes daydreaming about visiting Tuscany one day.

I once read an article by a writer who said that her house was never as clean as when she had an article due for a magazine. Guess I'm not alone!

Getting Started

And isn't that the hardest thing we have to do . . . just to get started! So I'll jump in.

Who am I? Let's start with what I do (probably the most common way to answer that question).

• I'm a professional storyteller. That means I actually get paid to tell stories to people! I tell stories to groups of adults at concerts, at festivals, at retreats, at coffee houses, at church. I tell stories to children at school assemblies, at libraries, at bookstores. I tell stories to families at all of the above. I give workshops about storytelling to other storytellers, teachers, students, and others. More on my storytelling work in future posts.


• I'm an actor. I'm in an independent feature film that's currently shooting in Los Angeles. Yeah! That's been a dream of mine since I was a small girl. And I have a BIG part! More on that in the future, too.


• I'm a college professor. I earned my Ph.D. in Speech Communication at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado (USA) in 1987. I've been teaching for the last eighteen years at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California. I teach storytelling (my favorite and most popular class), public speaking, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, gender & communication, and screenwriting.

Okay, that's what I do. I've been working on who I am for some time now. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever figure that out. For so many years I defined myself in relation to others. I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother. I didn't think past those labels. But I've finally realized I'm more than those labels! Duh! Now why couldn't I have come to that realization years ago?

Well, I started!