While perusing through the blogs on my Google Reader and Xanga subscriptions, and lamenting yet again the strange malaise I find myself in with regards to the long gaps in between posts on this blog (when one of my 2007 New Year's resolutions was to post 2 times per week - ha!), I came to a realization:
I am not a very good storyteller.
Looking at the many blogs I am subscribed to (~60+ at last count), they range from blogs of personal friends from high school, college, church, as well as a few working professionals, musicians, and some couple-of-degree-separation people whose writing I simply connect with. Many of my friends are talented storytellers and can imbue the mundane events of their days with spirit, humor, and dramatic tension. Now that the Internet privacy taboo has relaxed some, they will also often use photos to illustrate their lives so that the world can see, but primarily for the benefit of giving their friends and family a continued connection into their lives.
I, on the other hand, have no gift for weaving the events of my life in such a way as to form an interesting story. My recounts of events tend to come out rather bland and lengthy (as many have let me know). Heck, I am also horrid at relating stories in person (as anyone who has tried to pry the story of how Shal and I began dating can attest).
What I find somewhat odd is that I love reading and listening to stories, and I feel like I've read enough to be able to recognize quality... yet frustratingly I can read my own storytelling and deem it boring. It's kind of similar to music - I can analyze the poetry of lyrics in good songwriting, I can listen carefully to each instrument in a mix and ferret out little nuggets of musicianship that inspire awe and a sense of beauty in me... and yet every attempt I make at creating my own song ends up with me giving up half-baked because I can't stand my own banality.
I also do enjoy writing, but rather than storytelling, it may be primarily in the realm of making observations - whether humorous, poignant, tragic, or other. Perhaps I'll just have to develop this style of writing instead.
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1 comment:
You're so good at making interesting observations and writing about them though!! Don't be discouraged by what you deem you can't do and look down upon what you can. Everyone has their strengths & weaknesses. (from "guess!")
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