Become a better story teller

not sure what direction to take – mythology? a big one. time consuming. personal tales? have to redo 2 or 3 that I’ve started and not sure how much opportunity I’ll have to tell. spoonerisms? Work on snow white – or wo snite and the devon swarves…

my storytelling workshop in Oaxaca – not a peaceful place, at the moment, and I’ll inconvenience my boss if I take off, not to mention spending too much money. Still, I feel a tad depressed – might have been fun, might have learned a lot, formed new relationships, created new stories. Bummer. Still torn – probably not to late to get back in – but do I want to???

..performed Dialogue with Writing Saturday Night at Cafe Express – went well. Also read it at the Chicago Writers Group – a couple of minor changes need to be made…

The “Death of Balder” which I performed at Saturday’s open mike was under rehearsed and I went up a couple of times. Still received positive feedback and I think the piece itself is a keeper. May perform it again at Uncommon Ground but rehearse it well first and try it out at a couple of guild meetings.

Find myself more concerned lately with getting my tales on paper in a readable form and editing than with creating new stuff. Feel like I’m in a bit of a creative slump.

I’ve been telling stories for some time and often wait until the last minute to decide which to tell. That doesn’t work when the producer of a set really wants a handle on what everyone is doing. Most folks in the guild know my work, but newcomers don’t so I guess I have to decide early in the game what I’m doing. Another problem is I need to work harder on my “families” presentations – my heart is more deeply into my personal tales performed for adults, but children need entertainment too and if I ever decide I need to be performing more and making real money at this, I can’t overlook children as audiences.

My goals in storytelling can be broken down as follows:

1 – increase my repertoire of personal stories and mythology
2 – acquire the discipline of writing, if not every day, then at least every week – twice a month is about where I’m at now
3 – organize my tales into categories & cross categories
such as:
type – personal, folk, literary
settings – schools, parties, luncheons, festivals
tone – humorous, scary, etc.
occasions – Earth Day, Halloween, Christmas

Nothing worse than needing a story in a hurry and being unable to find it – or killing myself to come up with something new when I’ve actually worked up something suitable in the past and forgotten it.

4. Learning to say “no” more frequently to requests for new programs that pay little or nothing and are terrifically labor intensive.

5. Before June 1 – rewriting personal tales so they work on the page as well as in an oral form.