Your Story Matters!!

It’s been quite a while since I wrote a blog post. I promise to do better and keep in better touch in the future! I’ve had my nose down writing my next novel … a continuation of the life of Pearl once she arrives in Canada. It’ll still take some time to finish but I’m pleased with where I am to date. My current working title is “A Touch of Promise.” But more on that another time when I am closer to completion.

What I want to talk about today is the importance of your story. That’s right, your story matters. You may think you lead an ordinary life without much worth documenting for the future. I am here to tell you that you don’t.

Take as an example my grandfather who never talked about his adventures building the Hudson Bay Railway terminus in what is now a ghost town frequented mostly by polar bears. I guess he didn’t think it was important. I’ve done the best I can to unravel his story in my book A Ring of Promises but I was forced to write fiction because of all the assumptions I had to make. The story ended up being only one possible way the true story could have unfolded. But thank goodness he left the journal of his month-long trip along the Saskatchewan fur trading route. Without that I never would have uncovered the truth of how our government treated many immigrants at that time, nor would I have known that he had had such an adventure in his youth. There is so much I want to know, so many pieces I want to find and snap into the puzzle of his life. But I never will because he didn’t take the time to write or pass them down through the family in some other way.

As a result, I encourage everyone I know to document their lives in some way. It doesn’t have to be in writing. It could be a video log or a taped series of interviews with yourself or a younger member of your family. It doesn’t matter how you do it, only that you do it and do it now while you can. Who knows when a life-altering event will occur, rendering you unable to remember or speak of the important times of your life. And if you think you have no important times because you have struggled just getting through life remember that Important lessons about life are learned through adversity as much as success.

Have I been following my advice? Well, not well enough. I have a few scattered stories but no plan to bring them together. So I thought it was time I started on my own story. I am hoping you will join my journey and document yours alongside me. I am making a commitment to write at least one story a month that will enter the file of stories that collectively will reflect my life. I have no intention of publishing this composite of stories. I intend to leave them for future generations of my family, so they understand my life, so they know where they came from.

I’m going to do that by publishing a prompt each month and following that prompt myself.

Here is this month’s:

Think about the earliest thing you can remember. What was happening? Who was present? Why do you think you remember this … is it significant to your life for some reason?

As you tell the story either in writing, through pictures or verbally try to add some information about how it affected all your senses. Was there a smell? Does that smell mean something to you? Was there something that stimulated your sense of touch? Or perhaps a sound you heard? A food you ate and now love or hate? Or maybe something you saw? Thinking about these things will bring the story into better focus and help your intended audience to experience it with you.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll share mine with you, just as an example. I won’t likely be polished to the point I would usually polish something for publication. The point is to capture it in rich detail for those who come after us to consume and be nourished.

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