Melva Gifford

This last weekend I attended Story@Home story telling / family history conference. (http://www.cherishbound.com/blog/storyathome/ ) I found the conference to be very good and had valuable information. The story teller Kim Weltkamp is a very talented teller.  (http://www.kimweitkamp.com/)

The thing I didn’t expect was to have so many presentations dedicated to blogging. But with hindsight I now understand the reasoning. The internet is a new way to communicate about our family stories and thus blogging is a part of that. I attended some very useful panels while there. For today’s Rock Soup segment, I’d like to share my knowledge. What better way to support the motto: A rising tide raises all ships.

Blog Your Passion: My notes from a presentation by Leigh Anne Wilkes. (http://pinkpolkadotcreations.com/)

These are my notes as she shares advice about blogging. She presented some useful points.

– find your niche / passion. How can you find this out? Ask yourself some questions such as: Q: Is there an area or part of your life where good things happen?

Q: How would you spend your time if you had a free day?

Q: What can you do easily?

Q: What are you good at?

Q: What could you teach?

Q: What brings you joy?

Q: What works do you do when you’re procrastinating?

– Keep your niche narrow. Blog on everything you loved.

– Be yourself. Read come back to your blog because of you. If you’re not authentic to yourself readers can tell and will become disinterested in what you have to say.

– Not everyone is going to like you or agree with your blog.

– Research indicates that many people read about 10-15 blogs a day.

– Readers start establishing a relationship/friendship with you the blog/you.

– Be authentic and people will be supportive.

– What kind of atmosphere/environment do you want to establish with your blog?

– Provide quality content a. Have content that is fresh, relevant and consistent information and readers will want to hear from you.

– Know your readership. This can be learned by reading the comments of readers of your blog.

– Keep it simple

– Once Leigh had five different blogs that took up a lot of time and effort. She eventually combined them all into one blog. Don’t allow yourself to become unfocused by all your ideas.

– Community is King. People come back for you and other responders to your blog. You’re content will attract your community.

– Readers will start interact with you. Learn to listen to your community.

– Respond to your community and their questions.

– Social media can build your blog community.

– Create a Facebook presence for your blog.

– Keep the blog fun.

– Have something on Facebook that you don’t have in your blog. Maybe ask your Facebook visitors questions of information you need.

– Pinterest has increased traffic on Leigh’s blog.

– Establish a community of other bloggers who match your interests. Your blog peers is a good place to ask questions. Be supportive, an abundance of others success doesn’t interfere with your success.

– Leigh did a survey of her readership to find out why people stopped blogging. These were some reasons:

a. Not enough in the blog (too short)

b. Too much / too long of a blog.

c. too many blogs in one day. Leigh suggests doing one blog a day.

d. Not like bad language

e. Print in blog was too small. Want big print for easy reading

f. No music that automatically triggers when you load a site.

– Leigh asked her readership what drew people to blogs.

a. A pretty web site,

b. Nice content

c. Site inspires the reader makes them want to be a better person (So be genuine in your posts).

– Start a blog because you have a story to tell not for earning money.

– Tread your blog like a job

– If you get a 25,000 readership a month then add ads that match the theme of your blog. Feature products you would use. Don’t apologize to readers for ads.

Last Wednesday I went to a fiction panel at the library and thought I’d share my notes. I am mixing all the different authors responses into one group. I may have revised how some things are said by my interpretation of what they said.

Q: Where do you get your ideas?

–        Concentrate on the story first. I imagine people in different situations and then I ask how they go into that situation and how they got out of it.

Q: How do you handle tension in a story?

–        By Prewriting and defining the pre-story helps define tension by how things are placed in the outline of the story.

–        On one 40 pg. synopsis author went back in and started modifying the outline.

–        Return to what you have written and cut off the beginning and ending of a scene that is often not necessary so that the essentials of the scene/chapter remain.

–        Don’t be afraid to cut and revise. Done be afraid the throw your words away.

–        In the story there needs to be at least one unanswered question. If you’ve answered the current questions then new questions need to be created

Q: How do you handle distractions or life’s interruptions?

–        Pursue diversions outside your writing time such as don’t read email until you’ve done your daily writing. Maybe write first thing in the morning.

–        If you’re not in accretive mood to write new text then work on editing/fixing up text that is already written.

–        Interruptions happen – Address pressing issues and then get back to your writing. Always go back to your writing when the urgent item has been taken care of.

–        Don’t open up your email, face book etc. until you’re done with your writing

Q: How do you address style?

–        The more you write the more you own style can be defined.

–        You can’t create your style by imitating some other writing.

–        It doesn’t have to be elaborate writing to be a good story.

–        Put a lot of attention into developing characters.

Q: How do you handle critiques?

–        Ask yourself if the critique is valid.

–        Listen to your editors but you many not necessarily listen to all the people of your critique group.

–        Has a collection of pictures of people, locations etc. that helps visual a scene and helps in the description of that scene.

–        You only need to give the reader the tip of the ice berg in a description and they’ll provide the rest.

–        Think of the 5 senses when you write.

–        Store up the different visual and characteristics of people you meet.

–        Books of the 19^th century were much better in describing things because there was no TV or pictures and so the descriptions had to be very clear.

–        You only need to have one real paragraph that uses the sensory details to get the story going.

–        Suggest book: Fiction and the figures of life

Q: How do you handle excessive dialog?

–        If dialog does anything more than reveal character avoid it.

–        Dialog should not move the plot.

–        Ways to break up long stretches of plot is by internal dialog or by blocking out the scene which is having the characters do things as they talk.

Q: Point of View?

–        Most important thing is the reader always knows from whose eyes we see the tory.

–        Suggest book: From X-Rays to Long shots 

It has been great observing fellow story tellers at the Weber State Storytelling festival. I thought for today’s creativity discussion in Rock Soup, I would relay some observations of what I’ve seen other tellers do to handle their audience, address difficult questions and make a more engaging story.

There are always two questions that are hard for a teller to answer. I think that the teller Kim Weltkamp addressed them beautifully. When a child asks, “Is that story true?” she answered, “That was truly a story”. I loved Kim’s response to “What part of that story is real?” She said, “That’s was really a story.” Loved it! How she modulated her voice maintained doubt if the stories were true or not. She still answers the child’s question in a vague way that maintains the mystery of the story.

A youthful teller by the name of Lindsey Fry told a Pony Tail story. There were three areas that had one line sentences that caused surprise and a strong reaction from the audience. Some of the boys at the elementary wearing pony tails to imitate the story character’s pony tail and later in the story all the boys doing so. Another surprise in the story referred to such chaos at the school that girl students accidently ended up in the Boy’s bathroom. These three references in the story created surprises, humor and touched upon potential embarrassing moments that kids would respond to.

Techniques I observed from the teller Eshu Bumpus. He tests his sound system early. Since he tells stories from Africa he has many African words and phrases he teaches the children. The phrases often become part of the story. To keep children engaged he will ask them questions often where the answers comes from something he said earlier in the story.  He dresses up in African attire that is a great draw for the kids. Another thing he does is when he has kids repeat phrases he will modulate his voice to different ‘personalities’ of voices and the kids are eager to imitate him. He has some very silly voices. How does he handle interruptions? He will ask the child’s name and he will put that child’s name in the story and continue his story.

One way Eshu does a transition between one story to another is he’ll clap a rhythm and the kids will follow him. When one child asked how he came up with story he told them to memorize the number: 398.2. That is the fairy tale and international story section of the library. I have an idea.  Using the number 398.2 would make a good hash tag for tweeting on the topic of storytelling or fairy tales in general.

Motoko tells stories from her native country of Japan and often dresses in a kimono type top. When she comes on stage and prepares the mic she will hum a pretty melody. She will engage children in the story by having them repeat a clap in rhythm.  She has a good way to respond to questions asked in the middle of her performance. When they interrupt her she’ll say “I’ll answer your question later.” And she’ll continue her story. I learned that Motoko and Eshu will often do concerts together which is a nice combination.

It is always great to get smart ideas from other people. One good idea is to glue a clock to a board so that you can put the clock on a front chair of an auditorium so that a story teller can see the time when they’re doing a concert. Another great idea is the staff has a bunch of pictures drawn by elementary children of their illustrations of famous fairytales. Those pictures decorated the walls in the buildings where the story concerts are taking place. I see three advantages of this. One, the kids have fun subject matter to illustrate in art class. Two, it gives early promotion for an activity the kids will be attending. And Three, it sets the mood for the story telling.

The Weber State story telling conference is in its 16th year and they are doing a good job. (http://community.weber.edu/storytelling/)

I had a goal. Get a website created.

I am not a technical kind of gal. The only byte I know is from a juicy peach. I have to constantly have my hand held, on anything computer related. I admit that the concept of trying to get a web page put together is a trick. A friend tried to teach how to use Word Press and I just got confused. I would look at web sites and note what I liked or didn’t like. The thing was that my foundation of knowledge was based on other’s knowledge and not from any kind of experience.

To help remedy this situation I subscribe a member of various chat groups and associate with friends who have a strong foundation of computer knowledge or they have gained web design knowledge through job experience. Since I knew that I wanted to do a web site at some undefined future, I saved comments from others whenever they talked about web sites. They discussed the pros and cons of web sites. When I would listen to a technology related radio show I took notes on of things I learned. For example I didn’t know what a QR code was until within the last few months.

Want to know what a QR code is? It’s the black little box with a bunch of squiggly symbols inside it. QR codes are often printed at the bottom of magazine pages or bill boards. You put your iPhone up to scan it and the QR code might point you a web site or video. I stored that piece of information away and saved it for future use.

Finally I started getting quotes from web masters. We discussed who would do what and for what cost. I chose my web masters and then gave the list of items I had accumulated. So the good things of my web site are attributed to those who were willing to freely share their knowledge and to educated web masters. Any short comings are due to my inexperience. But this is one example where asking questions and just storing up data and observations has worked to my advantage.

I have a friend who is quite a do-it-yourselfer. She puts on her own roof, lays floors and installs shelves in her closet. She will watch home improvement TV shows and look up ‘how to’ info through various resources. She has tapped into the knowledge of professionals and gained information from the experience of others. She learned from them what type of things to avoid. I wager she makes a list and made a plan of attack. Then she just plunges in. Each task she does by herself gives her additional skills and experience that will make her more capable to the next project.

I’ve seen some wonderful examples of people who learn skills through their own initiative. My encouragement is for each of us to move forward in increasing our own learning through the knowledge of others. I have always liked the quote that tells the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is gained by experiencing things the hard way. Wisdom is learning things from the experience of others.

Have a project? Research it out, access the knowledge base of professionals and experienced people and you’re several steps closer to accomplishing a new goal.

If gives me a personal delight to take advantage of the knowledge of other people and this is a great example. At Life the Universe and Everything writing symposium in 2011 the panel of this name discussed what kids have liked to read as observed by librarians. Notes from discussion were added. So this might influence what books to read to your kids during reading hour. Just some ideas. This was forward to me from a friend who attended the panel. I don’t know who presented it.

High-Low Reading for Boys (Written about middle school/H.S. but written at 4^th grade level)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Strange Case of Origami Yoda

Shredderman

Skeleton Creek

Spiderwick Chronicles

Invention of Hugo Cabret

Adventure Books: (Real life stories—like the kid who went to scout camp and ended up in survival mode).

Hatchet

My Side of the Mountain

Gordon Korman Series

• Dive
• On the Run
• Kidnapped
• Island

Superheroes:

Hero by Mike Lupica

The ExtraOrdinary Adfentures of Ordinary Boy (series)

Quantum Prophecy Series

Poserless

Gthe Girl Who Could Fly

Magical Realism: (Historical or Real life setting with a small magic twist)

Seven Wonders fo Sassafras Springs—a kid tries to find 7 wonders in his hick town, and discovers little bits of magic and wonder (in only one example, a man in town builds a tiny model, and anything he makes happen in the model occurs in town).

Seer of Shadows

Thunder Cave

Water Seeker

Nineth Ward

Robots and Cool Technology: (Boys love this, and we only have 2 examples…hint, hint.  I’m glad that this is where I’m writing already, a ship of astounding technology BM)

Story: Infinity Code by E.L. Young (boy puts together a team to work technical wonders)

Ricky Ricotta Series by Dave Pilkey (Mouse with a giant robot.)

DON’T USE CUTESY ROBOTS

Monsters and Scary Books:

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Stone Child

Witch’s Sister

Dead Boys

Mythology, Greek and Other: (Vampires, Zombies and Dragons have been overdone. These aren’t being purchased now like the rest.)

Gods of Manhattan

Chronus Chronicles

Odysseus in the Serpent Maze

The Reluctant God

She shared a list of creatures from the Fantasy Encyclopedia that could be used:             Gargoyles                               Geni

Griffon                                                Goblin

Hypocampus                           Trolls

Leprechauns                           Pooka

Hobgoblins                             Kobolds

Brownies                                 Domovoy

Bogart                                     Elementals

Nymph                                    Dryad

Fawn                                       Satyr (Mr. Tumnus, made this interesting).

Centaur (boys love this)         Leshies

Bunyip                                                Pegasus

Unicorn                                   Wyvern

Shamarack                              Sphynx

Cyclops                                   Gollum

Mummy                                  Doppleganger

Windigo (Native American). Book called Wabi.

After looking at this list, Bob thinks that she pulled a list of creatures, but some of them may not make as good of stories as she might think.  The principle is the same: We have an incredible list of creatures. Lots that we can use. So much that we could do with it.

A couple of fun examples for girls: Mother/Daughter Book Club, a book by Sharon Draper about a girl with cerebral palsy who can’t talk, and as such is in a classroom where they teach the alphabet for years, but she’s genius.  TRAPPED.  What an idea!

Notes:  Girls will read about Boy protagonists, but boys really avoid girl protagonists.  Paired prots are OK for boys (Fablehaven siblings).

She reported that a book called Clockwork Three sold out in three weeks.  I wonder why.

Looking at this list I see that kids love adventure. Even the titles sound great. Seek these books at your favorite library or borrow from a friend. With the advancement of eBooks on line you should be able to go up on line and look for the following type of key worlds:  The point is to just put in a variety of how you type in your search to get multiple results.

Kids stories                 kids picture books      short stories online for kids

kids online stories      story online for kids   children’s online books

online kid books         eBooks for children    picture stories for kids

short children stories  stories for kids online mystery stories for kids

short story for kids     children story books   read children’s books online

online kids’ books      online story books      children stories online

online book reading    eBooks for kids          stories online for kids

Today’s discussion is a bit of a tribute to the Life the Universe and Everything symposium and to the Leading Edge Magazine.

First of all a little history, around 1981 at BYU University a group of students took a SF/F writing class from a teacher named Marian K. Smith. The class had the perfect homework assignments: write SF/F stories. Once the stories were written, other students would critique each other’s submissions.

The class was so fun, that after the end of term, many of the students didn’t want to stop meeting together. So they created a writing group called Xenobia. The group later became known as ‘the class that wouldn’t die’. They met once a week for years. Some members left and new people joined.

In the early years certain members of Xenobia started a magazine called: The Leading Edge and the symposium: Life The Universe and Everything. Eventually those students graduated and the reigns of the symposium and the magazine got transferred to a new set of students who came to show as much devotion and dedication to these projects as the founders. The cycle repeated itself and another new batch of people would join.

This year, 2012 represents the 30th anniversary of LTUE. The symposium has grown and blossomed to become an exceptional writers’ symposium. The Leading Edge magazine has also continued to prosper.

The interesting thing is that the people who started these two wonderful products did not think ‘this is going to last 30 years’. The staffs of each worked to make a particular issue or symposium the best they could do for that given year. New members drawn by the increasing quality of the product and the mission of both wanted to add their support. And as a result you now see both that have survived 30 years.

Many of those who contributed to LTUE and TLE later pursued professional careers as writers, editors and artists. So this is just an encouragement to work on making what you may think to be a temporary pet project to be the best it can be. Others may catch the same vision as you and may contribute their talents to making sure that your chosen pet project will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

http://www.ltue.org/LTUE_2012.html

http://leadingedgemagazine.com/