Stories

 I'm reading a wonderful book titled "The Starless Sea" by Erin Morgenstern.  The book is chock full of stories.  Stories about stories, stories within stories.  And it got me to thinking about being a storyteller.

One of the truths about all of us is that our lives are composed of the stories we tell and retell, either aloud, or inside our minds.

We choose which stories we tell and retell, either consciously or unconsciously.  We choose the details in the events of our lives to give import to.  We choose the details in the events in our lives to forget.

We have the opportunity to write our stories however we want to, they are our stories after all.  We can choose to tell our life story anyway we want to.

It is not up to someone else to tell you that your story is fact or fiction, true or false.  Your story as you experience it belongs only to you.

This is important.  Maybe the most important gift we are ever given.

It is easy to focus on our own brokenness.  It is easy to focus on when we fail, or when others fail us.  It is easy to focus on the cloudy days and overlook the sunny days.

At any time, we can choose to change our story simply by changing our focus.  Life will always have loss, and sadness, and heartache.  But we do not have to tell those stories over and over again.

We can choose to focus on and tell the happy stories.  We can take an event and edit out the sad and bad parts, and make it a happy story.

Maybe because I am a storyteller, much of my life is lived inside of my head.  I choose to tell my life story as a series of happy stories.  I accept that all of my stories are not happy, and I take the lessons I've learned to heart, but I do not allow those stories to be the focal point, I don't allow those stories to shape my internal narrative of my life.

When I have periods in my life where I find I am focusing too much on the sad stories, a book like "The Starless Sea" reminds me to change my focus.

That is the power of fiction.  It can remove us from our lives for a moment, and it can help us to see our lives differently forever.

Waiting

 I don't like waiting.  I don't suppose that anyone really does.  I'm really pretty good at waiting in most situations.  I tend to prepare to wait when I know it is inevitable.  Airports, doctor's offices, the post office, I mentally prepare to wait, and bring things to entertain myself so that the wait is easier.

That's not the waiting that bothers me.  I'm waiting for proof copies of my fifth book, "Blessings in Disguise".  I have been unsuccessful in finding anything to distract me from the fact that I'm waiting.  No matter how often I check the delivery prediction, the dates remain the same.

I'm also waiting on the copyright for my sixth book, "Christmas Blessings".  The government website is down for maintenance until Monday, so I can't even obsessively check the status. 

I decided that the best strategy to survive the waiting would be to start work on my seventh book, "Merciful Blessings", so I did that this week.  I guess I haven't done enough internal planning for that book yet, so it is tying me in knots.  Book eight will be another historical, in the "As It Could Be", series.  I've been internally writing that book for at least three years, so I decided to start work on it.  "Broken Road" will take a ton of research, and yesterday I had a pleasant hour of research, and wrote less than 200 words.  But it is a start.

Right now, I have no idea if "Merciful Blessings" or "Broken Road" will be book seven.  One will develop on a faster timeline than the other.  Whatever is fine.  I have found in the past that having two books developing at the same time helps me get past writer's block, hopefully that will still hold true.

If the frustration of writer's block exceeds the frustration of waiting, is that a win?  I hope I don't find out.  Fingers crossed writing goes smoothly on both books, and that soon I'm sharing passages from one or both that I am particularly pleased with.

Until then, back to writing and research.