I am a Storyteller.
We’ve all got stories. We have the stories we tell with a laugh. We have stories we tell with a tear. We tell a lot of stories for just about any occasion. Then, of course, there are the stories that we never tell anyone. The stories that we are willing to tell are never as important as the ones we’re not. The secrets that we keep have meaning and value. We keep them for a reason, and sometimes I wonder if that reason is justified.
One of the sites that I visit regularly is Uncletypewriter. Stereo (the moniker of Uncletypewriter’s … writer), shared a pretty big story with us all today. Its something that she’s had a hard time coming to terms with and still shared with all of us today. Its sparked a lot of discussion both in the comments on her site and on twitter. It resonated with people, because a lot of us have had similar experiences. Its an important message that needs to be heard, and I’m proud of her for putting it out there.
I was talking with my father on the phone the other night about how life experiences are important to a writer. We talked about the years I spent hermiting myself, and how my writing suffered because I hid away from the world instead of experiencing it. I made an off handed comment about how I didn’t have any stories to tell, and he said something that really reverberated with me. “You have a lot of stories that you’re still afraid will piss someone off.”
Accept that your fear, and then beat it into submission.
He was right. There are things in my life that I could draw from. Things that I should draw from, that I’m still too afraid to let myself send out there. Its a block that I have to learn to over come as a writer. I’m inspired by Stereo’s story. It was something she didn’t think she would ever be ready to tell the world. I have stories to tell. They are stories that I am afraid to put out there. Some of them are things I’m afraid to admit. Some of them are things that I’m afraid will piss off the people involved. I was given a solution, to change the names to protect the not so innocent.
Its time to man up and get past that barrier.
Tags: fear, life experiences, storyteller, Writing