Relearning the narrative way

The first week of classes always seems to awaken some sleeping giant in my heart, this week is no different and the sleeping giant of the week is related to this here blog. I'm taking a creative writing course and it's slapping me upside the head. I've spent a large quantity of time thinking about a story to work on, and it's been a struggle. Now, it is supposed to end up at ten to fifteen pages, which intimidates me, and so I've rejected a lot of ideas based on the inability to squeeze that long of a story out of whatever idea is being rejected. However, all this thinking and rejecting has been making me think quite a bit about my so-called ability of story-telling, and I've come to at least one conclusion and a couple of hopeful resolutions.

Somehow during these past few years I've lost what once was a solid understanding of my own narrative. That is to say that I feel as though I've become less of the protagonist and more of an observer. And life is not meant to be lived in third person. Now, I would not say the observer-in-me has overtaken the protagonist-in-me, but it's been such a shift that it obviously bothers me.

How on earth do I resolve that? Part of it is attempting to use my gifts, but that's a whole other post. For now I have a couple of ideas. One is to carry around a pocket notebook and make note of the stories that I am part of, and those I observe. Perhaps there are stories that I'm a part of that I'm just not realizing, documentation could reveal that. And it might show that I'm less an observer than I thought. The second step is to take some of those stories and expand on them here on this blog. Stories aren't really stories until they're told. And maybe that will lead to a resurgence of my story-telling and this blog. I'll leave you with a quote from Sherman Alexie's "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona". You have my love.

We are all given one thing by which out lives are measured, one determination. Mine are the stories that can change or not change the world. It doesn't matter which, as long as I continue to tell the stories.