I could bookend so many parts of my life with two phrases, “I know exactly what to do!” and “What was I thinking??” Making big decisions is so exciting. I’m moving to LA! I’m quitting college! Let’s make a baby! I wish I could go back and taste some of those feelings again. As I get older, my big decisions get smaller and smaller. I’m going to get out of bed before noon! I’m going to take a shower this week!
This weekend I’m going to go back to some of the big changes I made in my life and see if I can bring up some of those old feelings of excitement. I want to feel what it was like to sense something big was on the horizon. I’d love for 8-10 of you to tell a story of a big decision you made in your life and what brought you to that big moment. What kept you from making that choice earlier? How did people react when you told them what you were going to do? Did it turn out ok or do you wish you had done something else?
Did you leave someone at the altar? Did you leave a career to walk through Nepal? Maybe you started taking the bus to work instead of driving and met your new best friend on number 9 to Greenlake. The choice could be big or small as long as there’s a story in it. Come tell us about a time you changed your mind and what happened when you did.
Remember to practice your story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want but not over 8 minutes. If your story goes long, someone else who practiced for weeks might not get a chance to tell. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email or give me a call if you have any questions about that.
The rest of the rules and guidelines are below:
Workshops are a great way to get feedback on a story you’re working on. Here is one I highly recommend: https://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/
I’m also happy to help people with their stories. Send me an email and we can set up a phone call.
If you like to work alone, this is the best book I’ve ever seen on personal storytelling:
We’ll be on Zoom again unless the indoor mask mandate changes. Now is a great time for our out-of-town tellers to share more stories with us!
I’ll send out the Zoom link to everyone on the Monday before the show which is November 15.
I hope to see a bunch of you on the 18th!!
Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com
Fresh Ground Stories 