{"id":8682,"date":"2013-12-12T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=8682"},"modified":"2013-12-12T06:00:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T12:00:29","slug":"cant-let-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=8682","title":{"rendered":"Can’t Let Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Not<\/a>
Not letting these stand in my way because I can’t let go of my desire to tell stories.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Been awhile since I\u2019ve been here in any regular capacity. It seems, as I expected, that the Cafe has survived quite nicely and even thrived in my absence. For those who don\u2019t know, here\u2019s the short version: I got sick, really sick, and had to take some time to get healthy before I could think straight about what I needed to do to be a writer. Let me tell you up front that coming close to dying can truly change one\u2019s mindset. Anyway, I\u2019m a lot better and the outlook is good.<\/p>\n

All right, enough about that. It\u2019s old news at this point for anyone who knows me and tedious going for everyone else who doesn\u2019t really care. I mentioned it to give some context to why I think about certain things and how they may\u2019ve changed.<\/p>\n

Now [rubs hands together], let\u2019s get back to it, shall we?<\/p>\n

All our life we\u2019re influenced by the things we experience and sometimes we can\u2019t let some of those things go. It works for positive and negative things. How we\u2019re raised indoctrinates us or triggers a rebellion in some way. The books we read may be the trigger, or the influence of friends or mentors, or whatever. It really can be anything but usually it\u2019s something that we weren\u2019t expecting. Revelations. Epiphanies.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent a lot of time over the last three or four months thinking about what makes me want to be a storyteller. I\u2019ve realized that there are a lot of things that I\u2019ve never thought about that have shaped me in that way, pushed me in that direction. Almost everything has had to do with stories.<\/p>\n

Comedians, for one. George Carlin and Bill Cosby in particular. Their comedy albums (and I heard them on vinyl LPs with all the scratches and pops) affected me deeply. I never studied their bits to see why they worked, I\u2019ve never really studied anything about storytelling, actually, which is probably why I struggle so mightily with it sometimes. But Carlin\u2019s and Cosby\u2019s stories always worked as stories, not just as jokes. I often think about the 7 Words You Can\u2019t Say on Television<\/i> and Go-Carts<\/i>. Both bits are very, very different but they work for the same reasons: the listener can see into the story and put himself there whether he\u2019s actually ridden a go-cart or not, whether he\u2019s used those words or not.<\/p>\n

I never thought about comedians being a big influence before but they have been. Andy Kaufman, Robin Williams, Jonathan Winters, Bill Hicks, Dennis Leary (I know, I know the arguments but still), Bill Engvall and so many more. They\u2019re all storytellers. They all have pulled their audiences in and made them think enough to laugh out loud and stupid stuff. But that stupid stuff is real, it\u2019s what we all do when no one is looking.<\/p>\n

My grandfather is the most acknowledged influence on me wanting to be a storyteller. I\u2019ve talked about him a lot here and there but what I miss most about having him around is that I never studied him when he told stories. We call it holding court in our family because that\u2019s exactly what he did and we all came to know all his stories very well. I have a few of them written down but it\u2019s not the same. The words are there and I can hear his voice in them, but the timing is something I should have learned.<\/p>\n

So what I can\u2019t let go is that I haven\u2019t studied hard enough to be the writer I want to be. I\u2019m practicing all the time, on this blog and my own and in my writing. It\u2019s a struggle that needn\u2019t have been so hard. I could have finished college and learned more if I wanted. I could have spent the time actively studying the things that attracted me to storytelling in the first place. Would it have been better than what I did? Playing music, making comics, watching TV?<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the argument: maybe I\u2019m a better storyteller for having done all that. It\u2019s true that I could have taken some formal instruction and spent some time doing some research on my own. (Yes, I have but nothing formal, all of it more scattershot than anything else.) It all comes back, however, to my desire to be a storyteller in my own right. I can\u2019t let go of that. It\u2019s in my blood and my DNA. I\u2019d be farther along (maybe) if I\u2019d been more formal about it. But maybe not.<\/p>\n

Instead I\u2019m doing what I have to do. I have to tell stories. The audience isn\u2019t there yet but it\u2019s growing. Slower than I\u2019d like but that\u2019s me – impatient. I can\u2019t let go of that, either.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m glad to be back in the Cafe. Expect more stories, maybe some insights. I hope you enjoy them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Been awhile since I\u2019ve been here in any regular capacity. It seems, as I expected, that the Cafe has survived quite nicely and even thrived in my absence. For those who don\u2019t know, here\u2019s the short version: I got sick, really sick, and had to take some time to get healthy before I could think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[202,1075,1276],"class_list":["post-8682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","category-writers-life","tag-comedy","tag-storytelling","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}