Every Rock has a Story

"There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly;sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges." ~Ernest Hemingway

I'm writing a new book. The beginning hasn't been easy. The necessary time for working has been hard to squeeze out of my schedule. That's always true during the holiday season. There are always so many things to do - shopping and cooking and wrapping and decorating and cards and Christmas programs and parades and ...well, you get the idea. I'm sure it's the same for you. December brings us many good things to anticipate but it also slams us with lots of expectations. We have to do this or we have to do that. I mean, haven't we always made a fruit cake or a dozen kinds of candy or whatever tradition you want to keep going?

I love traditions at Christmas time. But I've lived enough years to know the best traditions are the fluid ones. The kind that can be adapted and bent to a family's ever changing life. Of course, it's not a tradition that I have to write a story in December. Often that's the month I've had to put my stories on hold for a few weeks. This year my plan was to keep writing, keep pushing out words, give myself a quota of so many pages a day, keep working while squeezing in as many traditions for Christmas as possible.

That's still my plan, but plans have a way of running off track at times. Especially when the words are stubborn, embedded in rock and I'm out of blasting powder. But every rock has a story and with patience and determination, I've chiseled out quite a few stories in my time.

This story is growing in my thoughts, developing even while I'm not thinking about it in that mysterious subconscious. My characters are beckoning me along their story road although I don't think they're quite sure where they're headed. Right now they seem to be hesitating, a bit confused, at every fork in their story road. But isn't that the way life is for all of us? Unknown turns ahead of us. At times we may want to linger in some grassy meadow of pleasure along our life's road, but always we eventually must go on down the road to the next destination. My characters don't have time to linger. They have a story to live and I have to find the words to tell it. And I will. If I have to chisel those words out of the rock of imagination or dip them up out of the well of experience, I will. I am a storyteller. That's what I do.

I hope you have time for all your traditions and to enjoy the wonder of the Christmas season. Thank you for reading.

The Fun of Storytelling

"History is nothing but a series of stories, whether it be world history or family history." (Bill Mooney & David Holt in The Storyteller's Guide)

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My book, Angel Sister, is about a family with four sisters - sort of. You'll have to read the story to find out what I mean. But here are the first four sisters - my mom's on the left, Bill, the youngest sister next, then Margaret and finally Evelyn, the oldest sister. I love this picture of them because it's how I remember them when they were all together. Laughing. Having a good time. Telling stories about when they were kids. All the sisters are gone now except Mom and she misses them. Sometimes she can't believe it's true and with her dementia she wants to go back to a time when they were still beside her, still laughing, still remembering.

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Somebody asked me what I meant by the "fun of storytelling." I had told her she could join in the fun of storytelling by entering my website giveaway. An e-mail qualifies you for one entry. Never having won anything from me qualifies for a second entry and telling me a story about a sister or a friend who's like a sister means you get a couple of extra chances to win one of four $25 gift certificates to either Christianbook.com or Amazon.com. Not big prizes, but enough to buy a couple of books or more if you bargain hunt. Two of my Shaker books are bargain priced right now. I had fun with the Christmas gift stories I got in my last contest and so thought this would be a great time to talk about sisters. Because of Angel Sister, of course. But when my reading friend asked me about the fun of storytelling, the phrase stuck in my head.

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What is the fun of storytelling? That's what I do. Tell stories. Mine are written down, but I also love listening to oral storytellers. I like reading other people's stories. I enjoy hearing my family tell stories I've heard a dozen times. And I enjoyed hearing my mother and her sisters tell their stories. Those stories were the seed of the idea that grew into my story, Angel Sister. Those stories gave me the background of my story. Those sisters were the shadowy beginnings of the characters I created. Two of the odd characters that kept them laughing and made them surely believe their little community of the Alton had more than its share of peculiar people stepped into my story.

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I couldn't use all the odd characters. I didn't use the man, reputed to be brilliant, yet wore nothing but bib overalls and went barefoot winter and summer while walking everywhere he went. I didn't use the man who liked to torment my grandmother by showing up at her door with snakes in his pockets or curled up on his head so that when he lifted his hat up to say good day she would see the snake. My grandmother did not like snakes. I didn't use my own odd great aunt who wore nothing but black from the time she was a young woman including a black cap she pulled down over one ear to keep the wind out of it.

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I had to pick and choose my stories. But once I had my cast assembled on the set, then I had to forget their real stories and get them to play pretend with me. The background of Angel Sister is as true as I could make it from absorbing the stories they told me. But the story and characters are from my imagination. And that to me is the fun of storytelling. Letting the characters I invent tell me their stories so that I can share them with readers like you. The writing is sometimes hard, but the storytelling is always fun.

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Hope you think storytelling is fun too. Don't forget to tell me a story about your sister or friend to enter my giveaway. I'm looking forward to your stories.

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Storytelling is what lights my fire. (Hope Davis)