We have such a vault of stories as parents. Every day we are interacting with our kids, and we are listening in on conversations, and we are growing more and more as storytellers, because we get to be immersed in stories all the time.
I only have to take a look around at my kids to know that we are immersed in stories at every hour of every day. Not only are they constantly talking, but they are constantly telling me stories about their lives, if I am brave enough (and patient enough) to listen.
One of my novels came out of a conversation with my 9-year-old about these Power Buddies he had created. They have elemental powers, and he would play with kids on the playground, pretending to be Power Buddies, and he had all their backstories figured out, how they became Power Buddies, and then we decided to brainstorm nine of them, and write a trilogy about how they saved the world. My 9-year-old is one of the most creative people I’ve ever brainstormed with, because he had absolutely no inhibition at all. He didn’t know rules, so he would just toss out random plot twists, and I took notes on them all. It was amazing the way I could connect them after I had sat with them for a time.
Would that have happened if this amazing 9-year-old was not in my life? Would there be such thing as a Power Buddies series (still in the rough draft stages)? I don’t know.
We have all sorts of stories living inside us, begging to get out. We have stories about childbirth or child disappointment or child victory or child rearing or child struggling. We have stories about the way a boy feels about homework and the way a house smells when it’s filled with sweaty boys and the way we feel when we look at them.
[Tweet “So much of life could live in our writing if we looked at the world through a child’s eyes.”]
So much of my life ends up in my stories, partly because I write mostly kid-lit, but also because the most interesting parts of my life are the relationships my boys have with each other and the way they sometimes love a brother and sometimes don’t and the things they say to each other and the dreams they have and the imaginations they carry.
Sometimes, when I’m eavesdropping, my kids will say something that makes me want to write an essay. Sometimes they are the inspiration behind an entire book (last year’s NaNoWriMo came out of a conversation with my first-grader about a kid in his class who drools and doesn’t say much.). Sometimes they give me little snippets of real life that I’ll insert into a story to make it funny or authentic or interesting.
As parents, we are surrounded by stories, and sometimes that can get really hard to see, because of all the logistics—all the baths and all the dinners and all the caring for these children. The logistics can pulls us into that place where it feels like we’re doing nothing else but taking care of them; how could we possibly write with all these responsibilities?
But would our writing be better without our children?
I don’t think mine would.
I tried to write novels before I had my children, and, yeah, I was younger and less experienced, but children opened in me a depth of understanding and joy that I’ve never known. I learned how to really get into the shoes of another person, where before I just entertained the idea. I learned how to see the beauty of the world, where before it was clouded behind familiarity. I learned how to see from the heart and eyes of a child, and this has made my writing richer.
My children have made me brave. They have made me more compassionate. They have changed me in ways that are hard to explain. And the stories and writing I did before I had children are nothing compared to the kind I do now.
So don’t ever believe the lie that you could do more if you’d had more time to write yesterday instead of going to your son’s school play. Because the time we get to spend with our children is time that will translate into richer words and better stories and deeper understanding.
[Tweet “Our art is made richer by our children and our engagement with children.”]
We have an endless well of stories as parents, and no one else is going to tell it exactly like we would. The world needs our stories as much as it needs anyone’s.
So let’s tell them.
How to pull the stories from your life
1. Glean from journals.
I journal every day. Whether it’s a memory that has flared up, or whether it’s just a mundane writing about what we did today, I record it all. Journaling is so great for stories, because it’s authentic. We don’t even have to tell the stories as if they’re true; we can use our experience for our fiction stories, too. Just craft a story around an event, something that made an impact on you emotionally. Tell the truth and watch the world be changed by the way you tell it.
2. Sit down with children and have a storytelling war.
Kids are the greatest when it comes to telling stories. Our family has these storytelling cubes called Story Cubes that we often break out after dinner’s over and we sit around the table telling stories. Sometimes I jot down premises that I think would make great stories, and they aren’t always just from me. Sometimes they’re from my children. Sometimes I help them write their own stories.
Storytelling is a great practice for family life. Not only does it strengthen the bonds between parents and their children, but it challenges everyone to use their creativity and tell the most gripping tale, together.
3. Next time you have a late night or someone can’t sleep or a baby is demanding a lot of attention, write a story about it.
We can help heal ourselves and all our feelings—of frustration or fear or disappointment—by writing. We can share those writings we craft in the heat of an emotion, or we can keep them private and safe. It doesn’t matter. The very act of writing is a healing act.
4. Write a scene from a real-life parenting scene.
Mine would be a comedy. What would yours be?
Use your scene in a book. Some of the best characters we can craft are ones who have stories like ours, and we can use our experiences in these books to make them more realistic. When I think of Judy Blume’s Fudge books, the character Fudge was one of the most believable characters, because I had seen him in my kids a thousand times. Mischievous and lovable. Playful and matter-of-fact. Blume was clearly soaking up the children in her life (he was based on her son, Lawrence).
This week’s prompt:
Write an essay about the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word snake.
