The Blind Man Society

To start this off, I’m sitting here, thinking hard about the art of story telling.  I always wanted to be a great story teller from the time I was a kid.  I’ve written things on this word document at the library just now, being sans laptop at the moment, that made me laugh so loudly that people are now watching and listening to me snicker over here.  And, it is FUN.

Firstly, you need good characters for a story, humble beginnings and settings and lives that go on.  From there, the call to adventure always seems to happen to start our heroes off on the story telling road.  The Hero of 10,000 faces is a phenomenal book.  Hermeneutic circles are important, and symbolism and foreshadowing and all that good stuff figure in too.

When I was younger and in school as a Literature and Writing major, I made the observation that I learned most of the tricks to writing in my classes – but I didn’t have enough life experience to say enough about life, or to help people, during that time.  I needed to go out and live and learn.  Mileage.  It was like, playing a lot of guitar solos, without a stable song to put them on. 

So, I went and lived a bit.  And, it was during that time, that I met all kinds of people, and went all kinds of places, and experienced all kinds of things… and came up with a great beginning to a story.  I call it – the Uncle Jon story.  This is what I envision telling the younger people that I will one day meet out in the world, and who thankfully are SO young, that they won’t really know a good story beginning from a questionable one… It goes a little somthing like this:

WELL I’LL TELL YOU, kids.  It all started a long time ago.  Long before you were born.  Back then, there wasn’t really anything.  And, then, one day….POOF!  Uncle Jon was born.  Things got interesting after that…. and then…

It is, at this point, that I always blank out while practicing verbally.  So, as taking breaks for effect, and leaving things interpretive is important…this is what I came up with today for a segue and questions from 6 and 7 year olds that I have no answer for:  BUT, all this excitement has got Uncle Jon a little tired.  Hoo Boy!  I think I’ll loosen my belt, and take a nap. 

Well, the journey of a thousand miles, begins with a single terrible story start, but it’s a start nonetheless.  LOL! The kids: Wait! Thats all that is there? We sat here ready for a story! Well, here’s some scotch tape for you, and here’s a stapler to tide you over until the next installment. Here’s also some paperclips for your friends.

Finally, people have inquired about a Pet Shop Wisdom SERIES on theblindmansociety.com. and I’m working on it slowly these days. I’m thinking of modeling it after Voltaire’s book Candide. In this version, Candide himself, is Tito Thwippington Jr. the chameleon. His Cunegonde is Tinker Poodle. Mr. Peepers is Pangloss, and the list goes on. I have to figure out a way to get Neil the Electric Eel involved, boldly and proudly shocking the living hell out of anything that comes near him, with great grace and fortitude. Hm. Big things, brewing at the library today!

I think this makes 141 blogs I’ve written now. Season 7 is drawing to a close. Thank you to everyone who has been along for this written journey, and please stay tuned for Season 8 coming soon!