Telling Stories

I really enjoy telling my little stories. I talked before about creating an enchantment. As a Waldorf teacher this was part of the game. One way we taught vocabulary was by using it. I remember telling a fairly tale to a first grade class. I used the word "pellucid" describing the princess's dress. In a Waldorf class, the children retell the story the next day. One of the little darlings, telling the story the next day, with her own details - color, fabric, and so on - used the word "pellucid" and added "shimmering". That word, without any explanation, was now a part of her vocabulary.

When I had my TV show, and no one was around, I gave my whole performance to the camera man. If I could get him interested or hooked, I really started to flow.

I never thought that I could tell stories without seeing the reaction of my audience. I became a pretty good judge of the reaction I was getting and good at jumping to the punch line when necessary and watching people for their involvement. I got bored working on some writing projects because I couldn't get immediate feed back. This Blog thing is so great for story tellers like me. I get immediate reactions. I get told when I am too out of line. (although I am often trying to provoke such a reaction) but mostly I get readers when I hit on a good story and not when I don't. How does that work? Don't they have to read the story to know? Apparently not.

There is a STATS page on blogspot that informs me of how many readers I have and where they live and which of my Blogs they read. I had no idea. Imagine that. When my ten Russian readers dropped out for a bit, I tried to figure out what might interest them. Silly activity, but a lot of fun for the imagination. I have only met a couple of Russians in my whole life. Now I have my real Russians and at the same time, they are only in my imagination. I am fond of them.

And all that is imaginary because a lot of people rout their Internet through other countries. I didn't know that before. I had friends in Nicaragua who couldn't get Netfliks directly from US to Nicaragua, so they routed through Germany or Iceland. So, my Russians might not be Russian. Who knows?

In the old troubadour  tradition, when you told your stories for your room and board, the formula was to get the audience to cry, then to laugh, then to fall asleep. I rather like that, although many of you have not been feasting and drinking in a castle somewhere in Ireland when you read this stuff on your iphones. Maybe the sleep part is out of date.

One of the most remarkable things I am experiencing is our universality. If I am thinking about something, or chewing on something, or remembering something, there are a lot of other people having the same thought at the same time. Do the ideas and stories live in a universe that breaks through to a lot of people at once? Is this writing just giving a chance for stuff out there to pop in for a moment? Are any of our thoughts original or are they deep in the collective unconscious lurking around waiting for their breakthrough? Are those artists who say the book wrote itself speaking the truth?