To Tell a Story

I spent hours as a child, huddled under the covers with a flashlight, reading. I read classics and contemporaries, young adult books and very adult books, anything I could get my hands on. Some times, many times, I would stop and reread a passage aloud. I'd read it to my parents and later to boyfriends and later still to my husband. And if there was no one to read it to, I'd read it aloud anyway, letting the sound of my own voice speaking someone else's words bounce around in my ears. There is something musical about a well written phrase read aloud. The careful precision of prose possesses an eloquence that I rarely - okay, never - manage when I open my mouth on my own.

And while my writing tends to be grammatically loose, and parenthetically excessive, and uses the poor dash in ways it was never meant to be used, every now and again, I say exactly what I meant to say, exactly how I wanted to say it. Sometimes, just sometimes, I sit back and read a bit and think "Oh. That's just right." It is a ridiculously self satisfying feeling.

All I want to do is tell you a story. I can not sew or paint or do anything practical or of real use. I can't change a tire or even drive a stick shift. My children laugh at me because I specialize in Play Doh snakes. Just snakes. But they ask me time and again, 'Tell me a story.' Because that, I can do.

I can tell you a story. And maybe, sometimes, you'll read it and sit back and think, "Oh. That's just right."


This post was inspired by the NaBloPoMo prompt, "What is your favorite part about writing?" I'm participating this year, which means a blog post every day for the month of November. For more details, and to see who else is participating, click the badge over there on the left. Wish me luck, I will try not to suck.