August 18, 2013
A new class tempted me! I am now participating in the Story Coach and expect that by December I will be a world-renowned author! Well, OK, maybe that is a little ambitious. I want to learn how to put a story together so that I can tell my stories about my life and that of my parents and grandparents - something to leave my children and grandchildren when they finally reach that age when they want to know. Unfortunately, for too many of us, that age doesn't come along until those who have the answers are gone. That is why I am here. Please feel free to leave your comments (and I hope you will,) just remember, I am new here, so be kind. Previous entries were written in another class I took this summer, Finding Your Voice. Now...on to this story.
Story Coach Lesson 1: How the Play Changed
How the Storyteller Emerged
Last week I wrote a story,
“Eating Goober Peas” about the time when Bug ate all Granddaddy Dye’s peanuts
he had prepared for planting. Then I revamped a scrapbook page I had done to
tell the story. The new scrapbook page has a better form, more color and enhances
the story I had written. I have always
enjoyed reading, and in the past year I have started to journal. At the
beginning of summer I enrolled in the Find Your Voice Workshop to learn more
about writing. This has been an exciting
time for me learning how to put a story together and use photos to compliment
and help tell the story.
The day after I retired, eighteen
months ago, two things happened to start me on this journey. A friend gave me a journal and I left for a
Girls Week Away at the beach. What better way to begin retirement than to be at
the beach – and write about it! I found
that I enjoyed capturing the events of the day and decided that I wanted to get
in touch with my creative self – if she existed!
Although I had written poetry in the past, I had never written stories. I have never been able to draw and I have
been intimidated by painting since first grade when I painted my Thanksgiving
turkey red because I couldn't remember how to make brown. It isn't surprising
that I have never attempted any type of creative project.
Reading has always been my
favorite (safe? no competition? No criticism?) form of entertainment. My Mother
read to me as a small child, and I was soon turning the pages to my Little
Golden Books. They gave way to the Bobbsey Twins, and as I grew, to Anne
of Greene Gables and Nancy Drew.
As a teen I often made up stories to tell my babysitting charges but
never wrote them down. This love of reading continued right into adulthood. My
passion has always been historical novels, biographies and mystery novels. I
love reading about other people, other places and times. Journaling has not
replaced reading, but has evolved from it.
It has been interesting to me to
discover how much I enjoy putting my own words on paper. From
time to time throughout my adulthood, I have started a journal. Sometimes it
lasted a couple of months, sometimes a few weeks, more often only a few days.
Having a few exciting days to document while I was at the beach, was enough to
get me hooked. Always a seeker, I went to the internet to read more about
keeping a journal. That is when I discovered art journals! Soon I was buying
paints and brushes, colored pencils and pens and trying my hand at art
journaling. I wasn’t very good at it,
but –somewhere along the way, I came across a little saying, “To be creative,
we must first lose our fear of being wrong.”
Examples seemed to cover the
gamut of artistic ability, in fact, there seemed to be no wrong way to
do it! It just looked like fun. Prompts were plentiful and covered a wide
variety of subjects. I was home free! I
could throw caution to the wind and draw, paint, color and write to my heart’s
content without fear of criticism!
Another pastime has played a part
in my shift in activity - genealogy. The internet has opened all manner of
possibilities for discovering information about my ancestors. Being retired has
given me the time to devote to research and my hobbies. I want to document
stories of my life and that of my parents and grandparents and stories that
have been handed down. I want my grandchildren and their children to know that
I was here, that I was more than just a name or a face in a frame.
With so much information on the
internet, with You Tube and Pinterest, there is no end to inspiration, and I
have had no problem finding plenty of subjects to write about. Add to that the
current interest in Smash Books and all the wonderfully delightful inserts and
tapes and papers that it has been a joy to give myself over to this new
pastime. And, now that I am retired, I
have plenty of time to indulge myself!
Over the summer, I enjoyed the
Find Your Voice workshop, and was encouraged to write stories and poems, to use
photos to tell a story, - to create. I was pushed out of my comfort zone. In the
process, I discovered that I enjoyed this new freedom, this new form of
play. I look forward to learning new and
exciting things from the Story Coach and Get It Scraped workshops. I will
always read - I have just expanded the written word to my written word,
and telling my stories with art and
photos. And I have many stories to tell!
Pause for thought…
"That man is
successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much,
who has gained the
respect of the intelligent men and the love of children;
who has filled his niche
and accomplished his task; who leaves the world
better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or
a rescued soul; who never
lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to
express it; who looked
for the best in others and gave the best he had".
— Robert Louis Stevenson
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dyeconley@gmail.com. Thanks!
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