What is a Storyteller?

Welcome to the world of storytellers: What is a storyteller? A storyteller is a dreamer who communicates his dreams to all of us. Doing so is not only his privilege, it’s his responsibility.

What’s your story?
A question hurled at us from every direction.
What’s it got to do with my story?
But what’s the real story?
Do I believe her story?
Whose story do you believe?
I got tired of his story.
There’s something about their story that doesn’t add up.
Let’s get our stories straight.
Let me tell you a story…
As Muriel Rukeyser said, for us humans, “the universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”

No one is FORCING you to tell your stories to the world.

You’re here by your free choice, while they are behind their counters or their commuting dashboards or their tellers’ windows because they are afraid to take the chances you are getting used to. You’re following your dream.

What we learn from this is:

TOUGHEN UP.
KEEP MOVING FORWARD DESPITE YOUR PRESENT MOOD.
PERSIST. NEVER GIVE UP.
NEVER PUT DEADLINES ON YOUR CAREER.
TAKE YOUR CAREER, NOT YOURSELF, SERIOUSLY.

NEVER PUT ASIDE YOUR VISION, BUT PERFECT IT, PERFECT IT, PERFECT IT and make allies of those who can help you do that to bring your craft and skills to the level of your talent and ambition. If you continue pursuing your dream no matter what UNTIL you achieve it—and then you’ll have bigger dreams, of course—by definition YOU CAN’T FAIL. Carlyle said “success is steady progress toward a worthy goal.”

Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for Disneyland.

Frank Herbert’s DUNE was rejected 36 times. Don’t let your agent give up at 32!

Jerzy Kosinski’s STEPS won awards, but was rejected by publishers 34 times—once by its very own publisher, after it had already been published.

Yes, the business of becoming and being a professional writer is hard. The hard part is the great part. That’s why you’ve chosen to do it. The river is wide between where we are now and the success and attention we want is on the other side. You don’t NEED to do this. You WANT to do this. What could be a better mission in life? How can you fail at being yourself?