Storytelling
Years before sitting to write a short story or lyrical poetry, I sat before a little girl. As a graduate student in a psychotherapy program, I had the opportunity to work with a family. This individual with stars in her eyes and a way with words was maybe six or seven at the time. I asked her if she would share her story with me. Her face crumpled and she burst into tears while denying that she was story telling. I comforted her. Of course, I’d been a child too once and knew that storytelling meant lying many years ago. As an adult, I’ve been challenged with the truths of the narrative. How could I have forgotten that long ago time?
Today I write stories and sometimes have problems discerning what is fact from fiction. It’s usually after I’ve shared a story in a publication, that someone asks, is that character you? No, I proclaim but then the question continues to plague me. Maybe there are feelings I share with a protagonist. Maybe I’ve written about things I haven’t experienced in my life and things I have. Maybe I wasn’t Julia in Covering the Sun with My Hand or Maggie in Coney Island Siren, but I am them and they are me. Â
There are times that I write a scene and am not sure if that situation could happen. Sometime later, I meet someone who answers my question and I find that not only could it happen, but that it did. I met a reader a few months ago who assured me that Daisy Muñiz’s experience with her boyfriend, David Rodriguez, could not happen. She told me that an undercover detective would absolutely never share information during pillow talk. I didn’t tell her that I met someone a few years earlier who thought that Julia Acevedo’s life was too stark and real for her, and she wasn’t interested in Julia as her own life was too stark and real. We live in the middle of realities.
I’m writing a couple of new novels. Imaginative. Authentic. Surreal. Real. Dark. Humorous. What life is about. One is a new story in the Daisy series I’m calling Deadly Little Christmas. The other is written in a minor key. I’m down to the last edits in the Graciella la Gitana Oracle companion book. That one has been channeled to me like the oracle deck was. But then the novels have been channeled to me too. I’ve decided to blog about writing. That will increase my writing time and let you know where I’m at. Let me know where you’re at and what you think about the term Story Telling. I’ll believe you even if it is fiction.
Don't be shy about leaving a comment down below. If you’re a reader, you’re a writer.
Happy reading and writing,
Theresa