Elizabeth C. Haynes
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Preview/Buy
  • Praise
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Sign Up
  • Site Search
  • Author Q&A
  • Contact/Media
  • Upcoming/In Progress

Things I Have To Say

Deciding To Own It

5/20/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
​Not too long ago, I added the word "storyteller" to my LinkedIn heading. It was a significant step in my life because I'd never felt like I was good enough to call myself one. But sometimes you have to decide to own things even if you feel trepidation or doubt. Sometimes you have to kick your own ass and get out of your own way.

I'd never considered myself a good storyteller mostly because I'd tried to write novels and failed miserably - more than once. I'd start my story from a vague idea and then veer off quite dramatically, screeching the brakes and plowing into a wall. Then I'd burst into flames and slam the laptop. 

Failed project. Done. Over. Definitely not a storyteller. 

Right?

But the word storyteller is something I'm realizing can be applied to all sorts of things that most people can do. It's not just the traditional story like a novel or a screenplay, although I still hope to get there one day. But storytelling is also present in marketing. And in social media. And in day-to-day conversations. In fact, all of us tell stories every day when we recount something that happened or when we commiserate with our friends over a life situation.

We are all storytellers.

​Why was I convinced that I wasn't able to do what every single human being can do? What nonsense. What a waste of time.

By claiming this word once and for all, I was empowered to move more in the direction I wanted to go. I think claiming things is important for everyone's personal development and that it's step one to achieving what you want to do. I mean, if you can't claim your dream, then who will? How will you ever get there if you don't say that it will be yours?

For me, claiming the word "storyteller" was an essential part of becoming more authentically myself because I'd resisted it for most of my adult life. I hadn't allowed myself to find real success because I'd been convinced that storytelling wasn't in my DNA. 
 
Well, it is and I'm going to do it.

I'm already doing it, in fact, based on the response I've gotten from my network. And I've already done it for more than a decade on my other blogs and in my private journals. I just didn't think it counted.

Sometimes we hold ourselves back more than anyone or anything else, and sometimes it takes a long while to realize that this is the case. But often, I think, we finally understand it when the time is right - and not a moment sooner.

This was my time. This was my moment. And I seized it. 
 
I started my new job as a managing editor – a chief storyteller - today.
2 Comments
Thomas Kraus link
5/24/2019 02:19:37 pm

Dear Elizabeth

The story you told about your younger self and visiting your former college with your husband brought tears to my eyes. As did the story about the death of your cat. The great writers fictionalized either events in their own lives or the lives of people they know personally or have interviewed. George Orwell said Truth is fiction and fiction is truth because often fictional story is a true story with the names of the participants changed in part to protect their privacy and in part to protect the author's relationship with the participants.

In your journals are data that can be fictionalized that can be turned into novels just change the names of people places and things but keep the heart of what transpired and someday I will see your name Elizabeth C. Haynes as author on a book cover or at the beginning of a movie listing you as seen writer based on your oen novel.

Keep emailing me and I will attempt to keep responding because I get a lot of email and never get through most of it. I am now in the process of unsubscribing to a lot of junk emails to make room for email such as yours.

You are a good writer. Read history and biographies read the obituary columns and fictionalize the information.changing names of participants steal data for a novel from more than one Unrelated source . Use magazine articles and news paper stories for data changing the names of participants.

Good Luck


Thomas Kraus
tjk271@yahoo.com
tkraus1961@gmail.com
929-624-5532

Reply
Thomas Kraus link
5/24/2019 09:03:58 pm

I hate doing all my writing from my current home on my cellphone because no matter how much I try to proof read what I type in on a cellphone it still gives me typos. I updated the software on my computer but do not have a secure wireless connection for my computer. I do not watch television either because I do not have cable. I am waiting to get a stable place to live with a multiple year lease so I can get an internet connection and cable. I was not going to order those until I had a multiple year lease. Please do not publish this email. It was written only to acknowledge the typos in the above posting as a way of apologizing for the imperfection of the posting.

Sincerely


Thomas Kraus
P.s. I expect in the near future to see an advertisement of a newly released literary work created by you here in this blog. Keep up. Keeping up. Tjk.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Follow My Blog
    Buy My Book

    Featured Posts

    The Big Pause
    Difficult Times
    Life Shows You Your Calling
    Plague
    The Things We Fear​
    The Winds of Self-Doubt
    ​Lessons From Audrey Hepburn
    Deciding To Own It
    ​The Whispers of Youth
    Transmutation
    A Broken Shell
    I'm Too Old For That
    How Grace and Frankie Changed My Life
    Hidden Prejudices
    Second Acts
    I Died, Mama

    Archives

    December 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2020 Elizabeth C. Haynes
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Preview/Buy
  • Praise
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Sign Up
  • Site Search
  • Author Q&A
  • Contact/Media
  • Upcoming/In Progress