Just a quick reminder that our next show is coming up this Thursday. The theme is “It’s Never Too Late – Stories of doing it anyway.” Themes are just a suggestion, though. You can tell a story on any theme as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines.
If you’re looking to practice your story in front of a live audience, the wonderful folks at Bar Stories are hosting their show in Tacoma tomorrow. I told a story there a couple months ago and had a great time. It’s in a brewery and they let you use notes. What more could you want?
Also, one of our new members just started her own open mic in Columbia City that I’ll be going to next Monday on the 21st. Come hang out with me and check out the new show! It’s an open mic for anything. They give you 10 minutes to tell a story, sing a song, recite a poem, paint yourself blue and dance the Mazurka, whatever you want. I can’t wait to see what Columbia City people have been cooking up.
Lastly, our friends at 7 Stories are having their show a week from this Friday on the 28th. The suggested theme is “Letting Go.” The folks here are super supportive, and I always enjoy going there. Plus, it’s held at the Burien Heritage Museum, so if you tell a story, you’ll get to stand next to a replica of a 737 and the DB Cooper display.
Hope to see a bunch of you this Thursday at the Swedish Club. Oh, I just discovered where the mysterious third parking lot is. It’s across the street from the club and with a giant mural of dinosaurs. All total, we have over 100 spots of free parking, so there’s no reason not to come. Seriously, when was the last time you went to something in Seattle with free parking? The last time I found free parking, I was driving a covered wagon and coming to town to buy hard tack and gingham.
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I hope we have some late bloomers in the group. I myself am a late bloomer. If I were a flower, I’d be one of those century plants that only open once every hundred years.
But I can’t be the only one who takes a long time to get around to things. Did you go back to school when you were 50? Did you get married for the first time at 60? Did you leave your spouse after 20 years and join the circus?
Why did it take you so long to make that leap? Was it fear? Responsibilities? How did it feel afterward? Was it worth the wait? Whatever it was, we’d love to hear about it at our next show on July 17.
Remember, all stories need to have something at stake. Ask yourself what obstacle you were trying to overcome, and build the story from there. Practice the story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. Please don’t get onstage if you haven’t practiced your story. The audience is giving you their time and attention. It’s not fair to them if you get up there and try to wing it.
All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
Last Thursday, every single story made me smile. We started the night with what happens when you get too close to the wrong end of a hippo, and ended the evening with a sweet, ethereal story of a father fading away from Alzheimer’s. We also had our first story duet with Bob and his sister Kate, taking turns on the mic, telling different parts of the same story from their own perspective. Such a night!
Special thanks to all the newcomers in the audience that night. I know most of you had no idea what you were getting into. I hope each of you heard at least one story that touched you.
When I got home, I saw that I had enough left in Mr. Coffee to give one more person a free annual membership to the Swedish Club. The first person to email me will get it!
Our next show is July 17. The theme is “It’s Never Too Late.” I’ll get the invite out as soon as I can. Themes are just suggestions, and you can tell a story on any theme as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines.
If you don’t want to wait until our next show to tell a story, there are a couple of great shows coming up that would love to have you 🙂
Our friends at 7 Stories have their show this Friday. Suggested theme is “Rude Awakenings”
I’m always happy to help you work on stories if you can’t make the monthly workshop. Send me a direction email at freshgroundstories@gmail.com, and we can set up a call.
I hope you’re all excited about next week’s show and working on some stories to tell. The theme is Tiny Acts – Little things that meant a lot. Themes are just suggestions, though. You can tell any story you want as long as it follows our usual rules.
Here’s a story I just stumbled on that I find inspiring in a writerly, storytelling kind of way. I’m pretty sure the teller started working on the story with nothing in mind except the last moment of the story and then went backward to add in just enough elements to bring the audience to that final moment.
It’s usually easier to start working on a story from a single moment and flesh everything out from there, going backward and forward as necessary. This is especially true if the story takes place over the span of months or years. If the story happens all in a couple hours or one day, you probably already know where it begins and ends. But when we’re working with months and years, it takes a while to figure out which moments and memories to use to build out the story.
The story below takes place over at least a few months, so the teller had to think of all the things that happened during that time that had anything to do with the final scene and then choose 3-4 memories that would best get him to where he needed to be. I think he did a great job.
Hope to see you all on the 19th at the Swedish club!
Email me if you have any questions or need help on a story.
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I’m standing in the doorway of the bathroom, staring at the last thing you want to see. Water on the floor. Lots of it. Like an inch at least, which seems impossible since the bathroom isn’t an inch lower than the living room. But there it is. A tiny lake in my tiny bathroom. A few feet away, I see a stream of water coming out of the toilet tank. I have no idea how long it’s been draining, but it’s clearly been a while.
I run to the toilet to turn off the water and prepare myself for step #2. Going into the basement. I splash out of the bathroom, squish to the kitchen, and run down the stairs to the basement, where water is pouring out of the ceiling.
I am the least handy person in the world. I can build a lot of things: an argument, a pillow fort, a wall around my heart. But I can’t build or fix anything regarding a house. So all I know as I look out across this sunken sea is that I can’t afford to hire someone to fix this, and that a lot of my guy friends would be able to repair all this in a weekend.
Just then, my phone rings. I see it’s my buddy Ruben, who I’ve known for 20 years and who also happens to be my insurance agent. I pick it up and say, “Hey, I’m doing the backstroke in my basement. I think I might have to file a claim.”
Thirty minutes later, Ruben’s at my door with a ShopVac. In the meantime, my friend Zac called to see if I want to go to dinner, and I tell him I can’t cause I’m bass fishing in the basement. Twenty minutes later, he’s over with a ShopVac. While he sets up his Suck-O-Matic, Ruben goes upstairs, removes the toilet, and throws it in the front yard. Then he comes downstairs and says, “Go to Home Depot and get a toilet. Me and Zac will take care of Lake Currington.”
Zac and Ruben have never met each other, but now they’re brothers in flood mitigation. Neither of them mentions that they know more about what’s happening to my house than I do. When I tell Ruben I don’t know how to install a toilet, he says he knows and that’s why he’s going to do it.
So I buy a toilet. Ruben installs it. Zac walks up and down the stairs to my basement, tossing buckets of water into the front yard. It’s 9 pm. The toilet exploded around 5. They’ve been here three hours and have no plans to leave. And nobody mentions that if it wasn’t for them, I’d still be waiting for a $200/hour plumber to come by.
It’s been two years since that happened, and neither of my buddies has ever mentioned how helpless I was that night. They’ve never teased me about not knowing a ShopVac from a TicTac. And they haven’t criticized me for buying an 80-year-old house when all I’ve ever lived in is apartments with landlords to take care of things. The gift they gave me that night wasn’t home repair, it was dignity.
Come out on the 19th and tell a story about a tiny act that someone did for you that changed things. Was it an act of kindness just when you needed it? Was it a helping hand at the right moment from someone who had no idea what it meant to you? Maybe it’s just a neighbor who always says hi and makes you feel welcome.
Remember, all stories need to have something at stake. Ask yourself what obstacle you’re trying to overcome in this story and go from there. Practice your story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. Please don’t get onstage if you haven’t practiced your story. The audience is giving you their time and attention. It’s not fair to them if you get up there and try to wing it.
All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
Fresh Ground Stories 