Storyteller- Secret Keeper

She wandered and wondered. At the same time and not. But always one or the other, if not both at the same time. Would it matter in the end? “Being” out loud in thought instead of sneaky in secrecy with everything swirly whirly in her head. A made up story was easy. After doing it enough times there’s a formula, a recipe of sorts. You follow it loosely. Main ingredients of deceit, humour and made up facts, coupled with minor variations of secondary ingredients needed to make a story complete and more importantly, believable.

A story is what it was and what it still is. Some stories are more true than others and some are just stories. No one really knows except the storyteller and she often doubles as a secret keeper. It’s a full-time gig at times and at others, a commercial break interrupting daily life.

It’s all there, the truth. It’s just a matter of who wants to know it, including the storyteller. Who is ready for it and who would rather be lulled to calm and peace by a story versus the truth.

Perhaps they can dance together.

In Progress

I’m still working on getting this blog to where I want it to ‘be’ but like any writer knows, there are a lot of drafts and edits and rather wait until everything is perfect (never will be), I am blogging as I go. This will include adding sections, removing sections and finding my pace and place here on the new blog. It’s obviously about writing-my writing in particular and my life long goal to publish a ‘book’ of sorts and on my terms. I’ve sat on my writing for so long it’s getting squished and begging to come up for some air and relevance in today’s storytelling market.

I am finally ready-I think. To share it and to try so hard and ‘so much’ to be authentic and to not censor my writing. This is hard but maybe a few whiskey sours ( I don’t really drink those) and the right posse will support me through this journey. It’s my story to tell and I’m gonna tell it.

I will be adding a section that will highlight some of my fave authors-many of them memoir writers. Some are

Jennifer Lauck

all big and fancy with huge book credits, best sellers and regular royalty cheques and others, with writing equally brilliant, not so much. Many of them inspire me to write and to hold on to my goal.

Andrew McCarthy   (I love him:)

I will also put some reviews up here-yes, of books I’ve actually read. Some will be sponsored but most will not. Right now I am reading Andrew McCarthy’s memoir (yes, that Andrew McCarthy from Pretty in Pink, Less Than  Zero and St. Elmo’s Fire to name a few), The Longest Way Home. Some say it’s the male version of Eat, Pray, Love. So far there’s not a lot of pasta so we’ll see.

Excerpt from ‘Just Dinner’

I was going over to Gray’s house for dinner.  Not for after school hanging out or swimming in the pool before his parents come home.  I was specifically invited over for dinner with his parents and a few big city hot shots.  So picture this.  There’s sixteen-year-old me (going on 25 in my mind), 18-year-old Gray (sophisticated beyond his years) and Gray’s really cool parents, Anna and Reid.  If you could pick parents from a catalogue, they would be the ones.  Fun and intelligent, a bit wild, generous and on the up and up, but grounded and dedicated to their family.  They come from solid, old, traditional families.  Their families were bricks, solid bricks holding the foundation together.  Mine was cheap like flimsy aluminum siding after a windstorm in a Kansas City trailer park.