Yes, this is content ran once before and so did The Best Bloggers Are Storytellers Part 2 but I wanted to test something out. I’ll share more in a coming post.
The best bloggers or at least my favorites are master storytellers. They know how to take a simple sentence and make it sing for them. They are artists who weave tapestries of sight and sound that I can see in my mind’s eye. Every time I sit down at this chair and let my fingers dance upon the keyboard I strive to meet the mark that they set for me.
And dance is exactly how I see this. Words are my partner and my job is to lead them into creating a construct that creates something out of nothing
The seventeen longtime readers have grown accustomed to my criticism of my own work. They know I rarely edit or rewrite the posts that you see appear on this page. More often than not I save those words as a draft and use insert them as needed into the posts that I write. I suppose that you could say that I see it as being similar to being a Football coach or Baseball Manager. When the Dillon Panthers are looking at 3rd and long I’ll sometimes look to the end of my bench and see that walkon that couldn’t quite make it as quarterback and I’ll put them in.
They never know when I might decide to use them so I always tell them to stay ready and be aware because when the call comes I expect them to perform for me.
That might sound silly to you but it is how I write. The words are my companions on a journey and the players on my team. They are close family members that have my back as I have theirs. Most of the time it works for me but sometimes it doesn’t which is why you occasionally see fifty or sixty words in blockquotes. Those are words that didn’t make the cut and instead serve as an example to me of what I don’t want to do or a direction that I didn’t want to go in.
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It is hard for me to believe that we have passed the halfway point for this year. The summer days are racing by and I can hear the footsteps of the coming school year approaching faster and faster. 2011 has been a very peculiar year for me. In many ways it has been among the worst that I have ever had to endure and that bothers me greatly. Life is far too short to be described like that. One shouldn’t feel like they need to count the minutes in the day every day. But I have done that with greater frequency than I care to admit or think about.
The experience is making me harder and not in the way that anyone will appreciate. But then again there have been many moments of levity and more than a few times in which I laughed so hard my stomach ached for the following days. Though I will tell you that I feel like I am that rock and island that Simon & Garfunkel sing about I can also say that I know that I am not alone. The boys and I have had many conversations about our respective situations and while they are all different we are all fighting fires at home or abroad.
The most frustrating part of these moments for me is that I am not able to take control of the entire situation the way that I would like to. So I wait for others to do what they must and wonder how long I must walk through hell covered in gasoline. Not so long ago I wrote the devil a letter and said that when he finished fighting with that fiddler down in Georgia he should come look me up. Smarter men than I wouldn’t go looking for trouble but sometimes I’d rather swim out to meet it in single combat and get it over with.
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But as the Stones sing we can’t always get what we want so we make do with what he have and see if we can’t turn those situations to our advantage. And because life is the greatest contradiction I have ever encountered I find myself feeling like the best really is yet to come.I feel that change in the wind and picture myself walking across some sandy beach in Hawaii or hanging out for a weekend in New England. The way I see it if I have to keep battling then I can do it with a big smile on my face which is often how you see me
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Really, ask that wacky broad I call The Shmata Queen and she’ll tell you that I have the sort of smile that makes you wonder what sort of mischief I have gotten into. Frankly if you are smart you’ll spend less time wondering what I did and more worrying about what I might do. That is the joy of hanging out with 42 years of insouciant man. My son has decided that I must have been really good at talking my way out of trouble and I course deny that. I never got into trouble in school- I got others in trouble. Oops, did I say that out loud.
I have to get back to writing the stories that pay the bills but before I do I have just a few more thoughts to share with you. I am trying hard to just let go and accept that good things are coming. It is not easy for me to do. It is not easy because I believe that good things come to those who work for them but at the same time I have this crazy feeling that I can’t shake that something really good is about to happen. I figure that there is no harm in accepting that.
This quote really resonates with me: Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think that I am guilty of it so part of my acceptance is acknowledging that I have been getting in my own way. It is also why I may ask you to move out of my sunlight. I am happy to share it, but if you are casting shadows upon me, well you have go to go or risk being defenestrated.
See you on the other side.
It strikes me that this was written in 2011 so hopefully, you are turned around or at least in the process of tuning. I agree that most blogs telling stories are far more interesting to me. I think that’s why I keep coming back here. I also wish I was more capable of producing a story myself on a regular basis on my own blog. I find I’m only able to do that periodically and it’s something I would really like to work on.
zoebyrd2Â Well things are a bit roller-coasterish now, but they are coming along. When it comes to story telling the thing that works best for me is to just write even when the words don’t flow.
I am having a great year, but I am so exhausted all the time. Â I’m burning the oil all the time, every time. Â Vacation is very needed!
I say this because two years ago I was at the exact opposite point. Things turn. They always do. Keep scrapping.
geoffliving I hope your vacation is great. It is so important to have real time to use to just let go and live.
Strange year for me too sir; I’m feeling a little lost now that I’ve minimized my online social efforts. Oh well, let’s see what the next big thing is and maybe I’ll be on board.
bdorman264Â Hi Bill. I expect that withdrawing from some of the fun and games here would definitely impact things. When you have been around for a while it is still fun, but the magic is different.