If You Want to Write: Keep a Story in your Pocket
K. Wordbird Bate  The Writer's Life Coach

The difference between happy people and unhappy ones is that happy people have found a use for themselves, like a good tool.  - Barbara Kingsolver

     Did you ever sit around the camp fire and tell stories? Ghost tales, jokes, stories of how you met your spouse or the day your child was born, or the first time you played in snow?  Did your family read you stories? Do you have a relative or friend who can spin a great tale? Do you read the Great Stories by great writers? In my family my mother is the story teller. She has stories about everything. Clothing, horses, trains, fish, buttons, dogs, airplanes, business, sit-ins, farming, romance, friendship. She loves to sit someone down with some wonderful hot tea at her kitchen table, and listen to their stories.

     I was at a volunteer work camp years ago, with the Lakota Native Americans as our hosts. We were sitting around the campfire one night, listening to Russell Eagle Bear tell stories about the clouds, the land, the circle of life, and how Indians keep their teeth clean. It's not by using Colgate and a toothbrush. Then there was a long pause, and he said, "Now you tell me some stories. Anything you like." A tense silence fell over the dozen volunteers. Russell waited about 15 minutes, but no one said a word. I realized that among them, not a single person had a life "story" to share. None of them ever passed stories to their family members, or told stories as they travel, or kept stories in their minds as a living history. We were a story-less bunch.  It was not only a cultural gap, and a loss for everyone of a precious chance to share and laugh together, but it was sad that telling stories was completely foreign to everyone there.  

     Writers have got to tell stories. It's your job to notice, remember, and tell what happens, what you think, what you experience. It's your job to CONNECT people using your words, and your experiences. It's your job to expand how people think-to enrich and excite minds, to create a community with words. So you have to have stories to tell.

You might need some practice.

     I'd like you to imagine you are at that camp fire. A dozen people from all over your continent are sitting there with you. Dusk falls, night sounds begin, and someone asks you, "Tell us a story." I'd like you to take some time to write down a short story you would read to them.  The first dog you had.  Your first job. Your first hair cut. How you lost your little brother one day while playing baseball. Getting your driver's license. Write down a simple tale you would share around the campfire, when it comes your turn.

If you absolutely don't have a story, go ask a relative to tell you one. The generation before you knows all about telling stories.

     I would tell you the story of the horse Tar Baby. My mother handed this story to me.  Tar Baby was a wild and beautiful horse, gone "loco" they said, and had hurt a man. When a horse hurts a man, he should be put down. But so beautiful was Tar Baby, they wanted to give him one more chance. And I was there, just a toddler, with my mama, uncle and grandmom, as Tar Baby's fate unfolds, and becomes entangled with mine...

     I would tell you the tale of Memphis. How a dusty-colored black man leapt up and next to me as I walked Beale Street, talking fast about where I should go, and not go, and watch out for pick pockets, where you from?  Nawlins? Is it still like a war zone down there? My story is how it came to be that five minutes later he said, "I could KISS you," and we parted friends.

     What story will you tell?  You'll need a whole cupboard full of stories but for now, just one--your story, which you bring to the dark of the camp fire, to warm everyone's heart.

Let Yourself Bloom.

© Kimberly Bate                                                         

Photo by kota2006