Storytelling

It can be surprising to find that people don't take your topic seriously. It can be even more surprising when you find people that you admire who think that you chose an "easy way out" with your senior project.

I suppose these ideas might originate in the topic name. I chose to use storytelling over words like "writing" or "reading". I did this on purpose of course, all word choice is important. I knew that writing and reading had more educational ties to it. They made you think of essays and required reading, they didn't give you the creative side. By choosing storytelling I was making a statement. My topic would be creative, it would not be restricted to educational and factual questions, and most of all it represented my passion.

That's what this project is all about right? Learning about what you love and teaching a class about it so that maybe they can learn too.

So that is my first assumption, but I'm sure not everyone looked that deep into my topic name. Maybe what set them the wrong way was the way I did my research. Literature is fluid, as I have said countless of times. I rely mostly on interviews and personal experience to find my answers. Writing styles and rules are constantly changing so all I can really do is try and discern what matters right now. But I assure you that I am working just as hard as everyone else to find and dissect my research. Maybe even a little harder, because nothing is ever laid out for me. Everything needs to be thought through and interpreted in order to be valuable research.

Or perhaps what really bothers them is the creative aspect of it all. It's really silly to even consider, but it's possible that they have a prejudice against creative writing and anything associated. People are often taught that there is no future in the arts, including creative writing. The assumption is that writers are wasting their time, poor, or still a child. I hate to think that anyone would be trapped by these assumptions. Storytelling is such an important and incredible thing! With out story tellers we wouldn't have plays, movies, books. We wouldn't even have television. (Well we might, but it would be totally lame.) So I really don't understand where these thoughts come from.

But I am not saying all this to try and make them understand. That's not my job. My job is to explore my passion for a year and share what I find. If they don't understand that, then they are welcome to my presentation, come May. I would be glad to teach them just a little about what I love.