Food for Thought - Story Time

25 July 2008





A PLANT LADY'S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA

I caught a National Public Radio segment on radio journalism defining the “driveway moment” story - that story so compelling you can’t leave your car until you have heard the end. That segment stirred a swarm of memories, though not of recent news/human interest stories - no, what sprang to mind were childhood memories of pre-TV nights when I hid under blankets with my boxy Bakelite Zenith radio listening to such gems of storytelling as “The Shadow” and “Inner Sanctum” way past my bedtime, long after I should have been sound asleep. Surprisingly I remember those old radio programs as mental images vivid as last night’s episode of CSI. Though maybe that shouldn’t surprise me. Humans have been telling and remembering stories for as long as we’ve had language - our brains are hard wired that way.

Surely language was invented so that we may share experiences - I imagine remote ancestors sitting around camp fires spinning yarns and reciting poems as enthralling as any 21st century entertainment. Of course stories were more than just entertainment then - they transmitted history, culture, values, knowledge of the natural world. Stories were a matter of survival.

Often when I tell people I am a writer (And you are by definition a writer if ya write stuff!) the response I get is something along the lines of: “Oh, I could never do that! I wouldn’t know where to find the ideas.” After which they immediately plunge into telling me the story of their lives or the crazy things their grandchildren did last wednesday! We all have stories - we tell dozens a day if you think about it. Last friday our Senior Center Writers’ Workshop met at Little Pat’s cafe and we got to talking about story telling. It struck me that the workshop is a kind of camp fire where our tribe gathers to share stories. Even if we haven’t actually written anything since our last meeting we relish recounting what we’ve been up to, what we’ve seen or heard, what we’ve been thinking. Little Pat’s steaming coffee mugs are our camp fire around which we weave tribal tales.

Sunday, friends and family came over for Bar-B-Q to celebrate my mom’s 94th birthday. Sure enough, as soon as the gang tucked into the teriyaki chicken the stories began: a recent trip to Portugal - how the vibrating chair got to the third floor - what the cat killed in the rosemary bush - which long-dead relative Uncle Bud saw last weekend - how best to pickle carrots in a hurry. Wonderful stories freely shared. Free! Don’t you think that’s the way it ought to be?

I am somewhat saddened that humans got so off track after the invention of movable type, turning stories into commodities for the marketplace. Sure, it is easy to see how that happened - printing presses were giant, expensive, complicated mechanisms - paper, ink, binding, production, distribution etc. were costly matters. Someone wanting to print a story had to charge money to recoup expenses. Can’t argue with that, right? Gotta make a livin’ - why not charge if people will pay? Pick up a book printed a hundred years ago and you may be surprised to find advertisements front and back - just as newspapers and magazines do today to pay for the print run. (As does Google! See that little ad on the upper right hand corner of this blog? That’s what allows me to tell you my stories for free! Such a deal! Just click on the ad and Google sends me a cut of their ad revenue - how cool is that! Oh horrors, I’ve gone over to the Dark Side!)





But I digress (nothing new there). I was heading toward pointing out what a fine thing it is that stories can now be shared freely on the internet at little or no expense - anyone with a story to tell can “publish” at will, sending ideas flying into the world on electronic breezes. Commercial publishing houses receive countless manuscripts a year so that a writer has a better chance of winning Megamillions than getting so much as a personalized rejection letter. The gates are tall and strong should you even get over the murky moat. Moreover, publishers are disinclined to take chances on unknown writers - if you haven’t already generated tons of revenue you’ll have all the glamour of last week’s tuna sandwich.

Which explains why so many people are self-publishing these days (either in print format or on the internet) - and why the most interesting, original work being created today is found in the realm of self-publishing. So I encourage everyone to dive right in and share a story with the rest of us! Start a blog (if I can do it anyone can). Send a friend a poem. Ship your novel out to everyone in your address book! If nothing else you’ll so thoroughly clog the inboxes spam won’t get through edgewise. Let us gather ‘round this our technological camp fire and tell tales! There are no pesky word limits or format restrictions - set your words free! What have you got to lose??

“But, but . . . what about copyrights”, I hear you say. “What if someone steals my precious poem?” I hate to burst your bubble but unless your writing is already considered a hot property in the publishing world (in which case you probably won’t be self-publishing anyway) it isn’t likely to attract the attention of a thief. ‘Course, you can always copyright your work in the traditional way but the internet puts a handy “time stamp” on your work the instant you click POST - you have an indelible electronic paper trail that proves your authorship. Another way to protect your work is to email it in text format to yourself, file it in an inbox folder and don’t open it. So, no more excuses! Let nothing stop you now - let’s hear what you have to say.