Every Family Story Is About One Thing, #365StrongStories 22

“Mama! Why are you crying about that letter from Tatu?” My perceptive first-grader recognizes my grandfather’s handwriting. Sending clippings from the Wall Street Journal, prayers and pictures of saints, and packets of stamps for my husband’s inherited collection, Grandpa is our most faithful correspondent. Today, it’s a half-page ad from the New York Times. Grandpa would like to buy me an audio course on storytelling, if I’m interested. Even as I tell the story now, the tears well up again.

Marketers and people who help you build online visibility like to expose your pain by asking “what do you do when the only person who reads your blog is your mom?” It’s rather a rude question and, since my mother died in ‘09, I especially loath that line. Perhaps now I’ll merrily substitute “your grandfather” and forgive the speaker for being so glib.

You’ll hear different perspectives on “what makes a good story.” Conflict and tension are two of the more common answers. To me, one thing makes a story compelling and meaningful: transformation.

A good story is one that changes the reader in some small way.

A story about how nice it is to get gifts from my grandpa isn’t exactly wrought with tension. Admittedly, I wondered if it were fair to ask him to spend his money on one more piece of content I barely have the time to consume. But that evaporated quickly. If you’re a 37 year-old woman with a letter-writing, blog-reading grandfather who thinks of your business and your passion while he peruses his daily paper, you say “yes, please.” You then compose a very nice thank you note complete with pictures drawn by the great grand daughters and you gratefully make the time to listen and learn.

Instead, let’s focus on transformation.

The story of any family is one of constant change. The endless rising and ebbing of generations. The perpetual fluidity of roles that only children get to ignore.

Now, when we’re navigating a crazy supermarket parking lot during a Saturday visit, I’m watching for Grandpa’s footing as much as I’m making sure the kids don’t dart into traffic. We have all been transformed, but then, that’s where all the meaningful stories come from.

The iPad Time Machine, #365StrongStories 19

Must. Download. All. The. Ebooks.

You’ve been in this click-happy place. Perhaps when you’re feeling vulnerable in about your parenting skills or the size of your email list?

A few years ago, when “oooh! free stuff on the internet!” was cool and noteworthy, many of us were guilty of sacrificing our Gmail addresses for a dozen reports a day. (We didn’t realize we were paving the way for the billion dollar data storage industry, but I digress.)

At our house, the antiquated iPad is now streaked with tiny fingerprints, but it used to be the storehouse for all my entrepreneurial dreams. I imagined I would absorb all that material and suddenly awake to find that I too had broken the six figure barrier! You can guess how that’s worked out for me…

Anyway, when I was searching for an ebook to keep the kids interested in the car this weekend (I was in one of those moods when an app or a tv show would be proof I was failing as a parent), I stepped into the iPad time machine.

And I discovered storytelling. PDF after PDF about storytelling and business. Thing is, I don’t remember being particularly interested in storytelling back in 2012. I certainly don’t remember shunting any of those docs onto the iPad for future inspiration.

Though I’ve always been a writer who loved to immerse herself in fiction, “storyteller” felt too big. I hadn’t finished a novel, after all. That wasn’t what was holding me back from diving into storytelling though. It was something much more personal and painful:

I didn’t know, like, or trust my own story enough to believe it was worth telling. I was judging my ability to be a storyteller because I had passed harsh judgment on my own story.

In the last few years, I’ve come to believe that everyone is a storyteller. I know that stories are what enable us to make sense of our lives.

And I’ve had a chance to heal and fall in love with my own story too.

Finally, I’ve come to understand that my work is to help emerging thought leaders explore, own, and tell the stories that will change lives.

Because a good story comes full circle, this one does too. I've written my own ebook on storytelling.

This isn't some relic created  in 2012: it has been crafted for this moment in time and crafted for you, the emerging thought leader who doesn’t have years to waste on fears that your stories aren't worthy.

Download it now and read it now. Your 2019 self will thank you for it!

That's One Sick Story, #365StrongStories 15

The flu’s plot line is straight from the storytelling textbook. (Note: not all stories that fit the form are inherently interesting. That's your job.) The mundane world (health) is jeopardized. The hero must quest for the remedy (chicken soup, time, drugs). A mentor is consulted (mom, healer, doctor). Either order is restored or catastrophe strikes.

If you’re writing a comedy, be sure to describe the fever dreams, the crazy clerk at the pharmacy, and the sheet volume of tissues and Friends reruns.

If this is a tragedy, you must explore “I never thought this could happen to us,” and perhaps sum it all up with a meditation on the flu vaccine, the limits of modern medicine, and God’s will or the complete absence of the divine.

But, when you’re in the midst of it - or, in my case, holding a two-year-old whose new mantra is “No fun. Tummy hurts” - there’s no comedy yet and you wouldn’t even entertain a tearjerker ending.

One of the toughest truths of writing about real life events: you can’t tell a satisfying story until the major conflict is resolved or the hero realizes something new.

And it’s damn hard to write much of anything when you’ve got a thermometer sticking out of your mouth or you're trying to stick one into a squirming toddler.