Tell Your Story

I posted this photo a while ago on Twitter but I’d like to post it here because it has inspired me to talk about something I feel passionate about.

It astounds me how inspirational some of the graffiti is that I come across.

Tell Your Story.

Whether it be shouting it from the rooftops, talking about it over coffee, painting it, photographing it, singing it, wearing clothes that say what it is, and of course, writing it – we all have a story to tell.

I had a conversation with a young woman I know today who mentioned her desire to write a book about a significant event in her life. She is a good writer – I’ve read some of her prose – but she is worried no one will want to read her story. She believes her story is too ordinary.

‘On the contrary,’ I said. There is no story that is too ordinary and in fact, most of the memorable characters in fiction and film – Tennessee Williams’ Stanley Kowalski, Jane Austen’s Emma, Alice Walker’s Celie; even Clarice Starling from Silence Of The Lambs were ordinary people. Memorable people.

The point I’m trying to make is that most of our personal heroes (unless they are actually superheroes) are ordinary, everyday people who through the beauty of storytelling turn out to do extraordinary things.

There are stories all around us waiting to be told. People all around us with stories to tell.

These quotes say it better than I ever could –

Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people’s souls.

~ MELODY BEATTIE

It’s the process of writing and life that matters. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.

~ NATALIE GOLDBERG

In unsettled times like these, when world cultures, countries and religions are facing off in violent confrontations, we could benefit from the reminder that storytelling is common to all civilisations……the story is our most ancient method of making sense out of experience and of preserving the past.

~ WILLIAM COLLINS

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

~ ROBERT MCAFEE BROWN

However you choose to do it TELL YOUR STORY. It really is worth telling.