Roadmap for Story

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Something New

A revered professor at Dallas Seminary used Walt Disney as a model for what he called “Plussing.” Walt Disney was a visionary. Disney’s art and Disneyland got better every year by making improvements in concept, content, and context. As technologies advanced, Disney stayed on the leading edge, implemented changes, paved the way for innovation.

I had my first taste of Disneyland as a young girl. In Tomorrowland, I visited the model home exhibit for the future and engaged in a “Picture Phone” conversation with people who were at that very moment attending the World’s Fair in New York.

Can you even imagine how Walt Disney would marvel to hold an iPhone and to converse with someone on FaceTime?

Walt Disney honored America’s history in Main Street U.S.A. and Frontierland while also looking to the future. Regarding the difficulties encountered working on Tomorrowland, Walt said “Right when we do Tomorrowland, it will be outdated.” He was right.

The future is here. And the future world is changing in your life and mine even faster than it did in Disney’s. He died in 1966. The iPhone made its first appearance just 17 years ago, in 2007!

Plussing this site, a change for me means posts and articles will be longer. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) favors longer posts. Instagram and Facebook continue to link to shorts while those who seek more information, resources, and insight favor websites or subscribe to blogposts on Substack.

Substack requires a subscription fee from readers, which is why I maintain my own website. Continuing, I hope to turn a hobby into something more. I invest a lot of time and thought to produce articles and blogs in hopes that as readers, you will derive something of value from the time you spend here, reading and thinking.

Readers want to be seen and heard, engaged and feel connected. Readers continually search to know a real person behind the words, even more than they seek information or entertainment. Mind-boggling to even hope people will become regular readers as I’m one of 1.5 billion blog writers!

Still, I hope over time you will engage, interact and help me know better how to serve those who connect here.

The idea of making things better by plussing has stayed with me. I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but maybe you are curious enough to follow.

Something borrowed

Links to websites, blogposts, podcasts, and books that I have found helpful, I hope these resources may benefit you. In the past, based on the opinions of gurus who said links let people leave your site, I avoided sharing the actual active and direct link. I did, however, footnote where to find information in case you were interested in learning more.

My husband says, “You’re the only person I know who footnotes conversations.”

If leaving my site leads to something more interesting to you, that makes me glad. I’m a connector. I love connecting people to other people, to books, to ideas, to whatever contributes to their story.

Something Blue

My longterm, pie in the sky vision, involves creating a course to help those people interested in writing about their lives learn how to begin.

Writing YOUR story is important. Whether you journal, keep a diary (there is a difference), make lists, the value of writing can benefit your future self as well as those who come after you.

The writer, teacher, editor William Zinsser in his books about writing stated:

“You are the custodian of your memories and they are perishable.”

While pictures can suggest a story and evoke memories, written words are like fingerprints––uniquely yours.

The Past Folds into the Future

Months before she died, my mother wrote briefly about her life. She typed 8 pages on her prized IBM typewriter, starting with memories from her childhood, key moments I’d never heard her mention. She also conveyed peace about her imminent departure.

Recently, a friend shared with me the letter her mother wrote during the 2020 pandemic, a letter to her family given as a Christmas gift that captures the importance of leaving a story legacy in words. It gave me chills to read her letter, even though I didn’t know her, because it turns out I knew some of the people she mentioned by names. See? Our lives do overlap and connect, even when we don’t know it!

I can recommend books about writing memoir, but because I have spent more than a decade trying to write a memoir about my childhood and adolescence, I know how hard it is to write tens of thousands of words to tell a story that may or may not mean something or make sense to someone who doesn’t know me.

The number of people who say they want to write a book is about 80%, and like me, maybe 20% start. Statistics report only 8% of that number complete and publish a manuscript. Not everyone needs or wants to write a book-length story about their life. That’s a whole different ballgame.

Instead, I want to help anyone who is interested to write something worth reading that captures and records the spirit of who you are––your dreams, ambitions, perhaps something you wish someone would ask you about or you think your loved ones would want to know.

When my mom died soon after she had written her story, I kept repeating, “I wish I had asked more questions.” Now, there is no one else to ask.

Writing about your life is not a morbid venture nor depressing when you will give yourself permission to reflect and reframe even those episodes or chapters you regret.

Life is the best teacher. Live and learn and be brave. A topic that keeps coming to me, an idea that won’t let go, I have read so many books reinforcing the idea that each person’s story matters.

You are living your story.

Write down some of it.

Start writing now. You don’t need to wait for a course. My plans continue in early stages. Needs much plussing.
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Traditions come and go. Times change. Your future self will thank you for the investments you make today.