’Twas a month before Christmas, when all through the land

Every forklift was stirring, precisely as planned

Products were lined on the store shelves with care

In hopes that the customers soon would be there

The people were nestled all snug in their beds

While Thanksgiving excesses pounded their heads

Their guts packed with cranberries, gravy, and sweets

Turkey and stuffing, potatoes and meats

When into their lives there arose such a clatter

They sprang from their beds to see what was the matter

Assaulting their ears were the synthesized knells

Of the season’s first ads set to jingling bells

“Ho ho ho,” proclaimed radios, TVs, and phones

Compelling the comatose out from their homes

The powerless masses fell into procession

And marched to the mall wearing wild-eyed expressions

Lured by discounts and savings galore

They jostled and jockeyed and stood at the door

A dangerous, determined, and unruly band

Each stood ready to jump, with a credit card in-hand

’Twas still five in the morning but little they cared

The best deals went to the first to be there

To stand in the doorway a waitin’ and hopin’

To jump on Black Friday as soon as stores opened

Then at seven o’clock like some unholy tide

They rushed through the entrance and flooded inside

Some some ran toward ’lectronics with fervor and passion

Some sprinted to Toys and some dashed straight to Fashion

Oh the Tannen, it bombed; the drummer boy drummed

Silver bells tinkled and jingled and numbed

And then to the soft strains of “Silent Night”

The seasonal shoppers, they started to fight

They wrestled o’er barbecues, bean bags, and purses

Grabbing and punching and uttering curses

Filling their carts till the shelves were all bare

While Christmas melodies droned in the air

Onward the Holiday shoppers did press

As Santa’s voice boomed o’er the public address

“On Samsung, on Sony, on Bosch, on Chanel

On Gucci, On Rolex, On Coach, On Mattel!”

The holiday carols went on without pause

Reindeer and elves and old Santa Claus

And those Merry Gentlemen who refused to rest

Convinced the consumers they all were blessed

Under this spell they continued their shopping

Holiday commerce showed no sign of stopping

The weeks went by; the madness persisted

All wore silly red hats; not one soul resisted

They kissed under mistletoe, decked the halls

Hung trees with tinsel and glittering balls

While strains of “The Twelve Days” and “Frosty the Snowman”

Repeated like some evil ominous omen

Till finally a whole month of buying had passed

Christmas morning arrived at last

The people began to open their plunder

They tore ribbons and wrappers and boxes asunder

“Hark,” the herald angels sang

Come look at what Saint Nicolas brang

A drone for Timmy, a tablet for Tommy

A watch for daddy, a handbag for mommy

Transformers and Legos and robots and dolls

Some lipstick, a tie, and some new tennis balls

Gizmos and gadgets, a black evening gown

“Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”

For Eddie, a violent video game

For Louis a wireless picture frame

The music dreamed of a “Christmas White”

And chimed all the day long into “Oh Holy Night”

Then gradually people returned to their senses

They somberly pondered their bills and expenses

The toys, they lay broken; the drone had retreated

The tablet was dark, it’s batteries depleted

The pie was all finished; the fruitcake ’d been dunked

The turkey ’d been eaten; the egg nog ’d been drunk

The kitchen was stacked high with bowls, plates, and spoons

But gone was the cascade of holiday tunes

They all sat in silence, a little bit numb

The season was over, “All Ye Faithful” had come

So ready they were to climb up the stairs

Collapse into bed and sleep off their cares

When one of the younger ones suddenly smiled

What wisdom there lies in the mind of a child

She ran ’cross the room so determined and swift

To lay claim to the ultimate holiday gift

She ran past the trains and the dolls and the blocks

With a laugh and a grin she crawled into—a box!

A big cardboard fortress to hide in and play in

Oh what adventures she’d spend the next day in

She pulled out her crayons and markers and glitters

Drew unicorns, fairies, and colorful critters

And I heard her exclaim, ere she slipped out of sight

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

#poetry, #holiday, #christmas, #parody

A chapter from my upcoming book, The Story Story: A Voyage Through the Islands of Connection and Engagement for Writers, Speakers, Professionals, and Visionaries

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With breakfast dispensed with and society’s ills dealt with, Strider ordered his crew ashore. “Get ye all to the boats,” he ordered. “Go find stories.”

“You’re not going?” asked Kaitlin.

“I’ll go later,” replied Strider. “I’m used to a lot more alone time than I’m getting—and I’d like to do a little ‘curriculum’ planning for the Story Congress … er … the Happiness Congress.”

Kaitlin shot him her best lonely puppy look. “Do you mind if I stay aboard and share some of your alone time—if such a thing is possible?”

“I’d be delighted,” said Strider. “You can help me make some more bread.”

The other members of the Happiness Congress exchanged knowing glances and then arranged themselves three per boat. Audrey and Lenore headed for the nearby dock with Micky Tomm flailing at the oars. Walter and Doug reclined luxuriantly in the bow and stern of the other dinghy while Vincent’s graceful strokes carried them swiftly down Man-O-War harbour.

Strider and Kaitlin stood on deck watching the crew leave. Once they were out of sight, Kaitlin turned, wrapped her arms softly around Strider, and buried her face in his shoulder. Centuries passed while she breathed in his scent and he felt the soft tickle of her hair against his cheek.

Kaitlin collected her thoughts. “I’ve been wanting to do that for days. I know you felt that electricity when I touched your hand at the ice cream shop back in New Plymouth. And I see how you look at me.”

Strider offered a self-conscious smile.

“This is the part of our story where I get scared and vulnerable, but Strider, you’re the most remarkable man I’ve ever met. You have this way of looking at the world … this beautiful, infinite tapestry of stories you weave … and everyone else’s story is just a thread in that tapestry … and your story is just a thread in everyone else’s—in the story of the Universe … and…” A tear sparkled down Kaitlin’s cheek. “Here I am, the writer; I’m supposed to be articulate and I’m blubbering.

“I … well … Strider, would you say something, Goddamit? I don’t have words for this, but I’m damned sure you know how it goes … and I just want to know if you … I mean … do you …?”

Strider took Kaitlin’s hands in his. “Of course I do, Kait. Of course I do. I felt a special connection with you the moment I saw you look down at me from the dock back at Moraine Cay with your eyes all full of ‘who is this odd guy with the zebra pants?’ and ‘is he here to rob and kill us?’ It startled me.”

Kaitlin sniffled and laughed. “So here we are—two oddballs from two different planets. What do we do? How do we…”

“Get together?”

Kaitlin nodded.

“You might not like the answers—a big part of me doesn’t like the answers—but those answers are ‘slowly, maybe, not on this trip, and we already are.’”

“Too complicated,” jungle man. She stepped closer and looked into his eyes.

“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you, Kaitlin?”

“Jesus, Strider! I’ve never been this aggressive with a man in my life. Short of crawling into your bunk naked, I can’t think of a way to make this any easier.” Another tear left a glistening trail on Kaitlin’s face. “I’m the woman; I’m the one who’s supposed to be telling you to cool things down. Strider, I …”

Strider sighed, embraced Kaitlin again and led her down below to the main cabin. “Sit,” he ordered gently.

“I guess this means we’re not…”

“Please … sit.”

Kaitlin poured herself onto the settee. Strider handed her a pillow and sat facing her.

“Kaitlin, the first thing I want to say is ‘thank you.’ Yes, I have feelings for you, too. Yes, I feel the same way you do. Yes, I want to take you to my cabin and start making tsunamis in the harbour. You are brilliant and articulate—and quite a beautiful woman—and thank God you had the testicular fortitude to say what I was afraid to.

“But though the best inspiration shines like a sunbeam into the window of the soul, it was you who suggested that it is we have to ‘hold the pen for God.’ Let’s not pretend that you won’t be getting back on an airplane in a few days and flying 3,000 miles away. You have a job and a cat and …”

“I know, but that all feels like another world. It’s all so far away and surreal and…”

“This is probably one of those really stupid things men do at the most inappropriate times, but I’m going to tell you an ex-girlfriend story. Will you humor me?”

Kaitlin nodded.

“I used to make a little money chartering this boat. I never had an official captain’s license or a Bahamian work permit—and I got tired of sneaking around the islands trying to make it look like this week’s fresh group of ‘old friends’ weren’t part of an illegal business, so I don’t do it any more—but one day, Katya came aboard. Katya: Kaitlin. Perfect, huh?”

Kaitlin smiled weakly.

“Katya was a professional contortionist. Not only could she turn herself into a human pretzel, she could climb around the rigging like a gibbon and perform aerial stunts with a gigantic red ribbon. Katya had an IQ of about 600. She got on board, wrapped her brain around the aero- and hydrodynamics of sailing and did things with this boat that made me look like an amateur.

“To make a long story short…”

Kaitlin smiled. “Strider, I didn’t think you had it in you!”

“I have to keep you on your toes or you’ll lose interest, my dear … but by the end of the cruise, we were…”

“Now that must have been interesting!”

“I wasn’t going to mention it, but yes, Katya’s unusual elasticity afforded some opportunities for intimate connection that … well … let’s just say that added to my certain knowledge that I was never going to find another Katya Kuznetsov.”

“So what happened?”

“By the end of the cruise, all the other guests were pretty uncomfortable. Boats aren’t very private places, and though I’m used to having couples aboard who want a romantic holiday, it’s different when two giant magnets clank together and start pretending they’re eighteen years old again.”

Kaitlin giggled.

“And then we made plans. It was all so perfect. She called Cirque du Soleil and told them she was going to drop out of the tour. She flew home to settle some affairs and came back a week later, and we started looking at navigation charts. We bounced around the Abacos and then we headed south through the Exumas and down to the Turks and Caicos. We jumped off to the Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands, made love on deserted moonlit beaches, gazed at the stars, talked about life and stories and…” Strider paused.

“One day, the fantasy got old—at least for Katya. She woke up one morning on a boat in the middle of the British Virgin Islands and realized she’d seen a lot of islands and a lot of beaches and a lot of me. Whatever it was that we’d set out to achieve together had been achieved. I was content with ‘happily ever after,’ but few people are. I think it was starting to feel like a beautiful prison sentence to her. We’d had all our deep, philosophical conversations and explored the outermost limits of sexual intimacy. We’d sailed together in calms and storms and each of us had learned to sleep soundly when the other was at the helm. It was perfect—for me.

“You see, I was happily ensconced in the metaphor I’d made for myself; this was my story. Katya hadn’t grown up dreaming about pirates or adventure voyaging or sailboats—and she wasn’t a writer or a painter. The sailing life didn’t free her up to work on a novel or develop a theory or write a business plan. Her full-time job ended up being having me as a loving pet. She needed me to distract her, to divert her from her supposedly glamorous life swinging from the top of a circus tent. She left that to share my supposedly glamorous life sailing through the tropics. What she got was the tabula rasa—the blank slate she needed to write her destiny on—and that wasn’t a destiny she was ultimately meant to share with me.”

Kaitlin closed her eyes and visualized beautiful Katya with a painted face and a feathered headdress atop her long flowing hair, balanced on the tip of the Metaphor’s bowsprit clad only in a shimmering silk ribbon.

Strider inhaled his own memory picture and let out a long breath. “I poured her into an airplane. We were both sobbing like babies. But she wasn’t happy. She needed to write her story, but she couldn’t do that as long as she was riding on the back of mine. We had a beautiful connection, but she had this bright, beautiful mind and this talented, flexible body. She had all the tools she needed to change the world—but hanging from a silk ribbon in front of an audience hadn’t helped her do that, and sailing in paradise hadn’t, either.”

“So what happened to her?”

“She went home to Siberia and started the ‘Red Ribbon’ women’s organization. When young girls in Eastern European orphanages turn 18 without getting adopted, they get turned out into the street because the government won’t support them any more. You can imagine where too many of them end up. She teaches them to use their minds and their bodies in whatever unique ways best help them pursue their destinies.”

“She sounds perfect—and perfect for you. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“Stay with me, Kait; don’t go into the light.”

Kaitlin laughed.

“Katya and I needed to write a piece of our story together—and we did. But Katya’s a lot like me—probably too much like me. She likes her own story to be barebones and uncomplicated—like I do—but she loves helping other people with their conflicts and transformations. I think we came together and she wrapped her head around the storytelling bit and then needed to go somewhere where she could apply her talents. We loved sharing life, but our time together—and the fact that a hot romance in paradise wasn’t keeping her glass full—helped her find her true path.”

“Are you still in touch?”

“We send postcards here and there, and an odd letter shows up at the little Man-O-War post office once in a while. She married a sweet, pudgy little guy who’s got a generous heart and a successful export business. He puts the girls to work in his warehouse, and she puts that massive brain of hers to work helping them write life stories of happiness, success, and fulfillment. She’s got a couple of little rug rats to chase around, and stories of circus life and sailing life to share—or to reflect on quietly and smile over depending on which stories she’s thinking of.”

“So where does that leave us?” Kaitlin twisted one of her braids.

“Where it leaves us is that we have an obvious connection, but I’m not going to get hot and heavy with you on a boat with six other people aboard. I’m not going to split our group into the Happiness couple and the Disgusted Congress.

“Where it also leaves us is that the connection is there and the interest is there, but if you’ll allow me to be brutally unselfish about it—for both of our sakes—I think you need to go home and put your story in order. You don’t have enough data about either me or sailing to drop everything you’re doing in Seattle and move in here—and that’s not a recipe for a lasting relationship, anyway. Living on a boat can be romantic as hell, but there’s a lot of ‘chop wood; carry water’ stuff that catches up with people.

“But Strider, how are we going to find out…?”

“Kait, I think we already know. We have a connection. We feel it and we acknowledge it. We’re sitting here talking about it. If you want to write a story where we spend time together and see what that connection grows into, I’d be thrilled and honored to write it with you. But I’m not going to let you abandon whatever story you’ve spent your whole life developing so you can hitch a ride on mine. If you want to explore our connection, if you want to share a story with me, you have to write a complete, self-standing story of your own that intersects with mine.”

“What about you, Strider? What about your story intersecting with mine?”

“We’re not two people sitting in the dark writing independent secrets—at least not since we started this conversation—but if we are to be whatever it is we are to be, it will come from both of us writing good stories and getting those good stories together. Come back and spend a week sailing. Go home again and let the experience settle.”

“Would you visit me in Seattle?”

“I’m not good with crowds and tall buildings and traffic, but with a very understanding tour guide, it might be fun.”

“And then…”

“And then we’ll become acquaintances or lovers or life partners or friends or spouses—spice?—or whatever silly labels we need to apply to make sure our connection rolls into the appropriate tube once we drop it into the sorting machine. We’ll get together and we’ll bounce off each other or we’ll stick together or … Do you really want to screw this up by writing the whole damned script after spending half a week together? We’re here—now—together. Let’s hold the pen for God, but let’s acknowledge that’s all we have to do. Let’s not ‘work on the relationship’ or put ourselves in a position where it’s more important to write a mediocre ending than a cliffhanger. In a month, we’ll feel how we feel. In a year, we’ll feel how we feel.”

“But how will we know…?”

“Kait, look at the stars. How will you know? You can’t. Look deep inside your soul at everything you are not. How will you know? You can’t. We’re adrift on an endless sea of stories. Stop analyzing the water. The important story is that you and I are sitting here holding hands, confronting the Mystery together. Everything else is just politics. Take a minute and burn this moment into your memory—the having, the wanting, the fear, the joy, the certainty, the confusion, the complexity, the simplicity—the big ocean of conflict and the promised land of transformation that lies beyond imagination. What happens to us after we ‘get together,’—whatever that means? What happens to us after we die? It’s the same abstract question and the same ‘hazy white light with harp glissandos’ answer.

“A lot of vacationing women came on and off this ship when I was in the charter business. For a while, I thought I must be pretty special; I got propositioned left and right—and I’d never thought of myself as unusually attractive. But whenever someone would stay on, the relationship would last a week or a month or two or three.

“After a while, I realized I was that ‘grass that’s always greener.’ Plenty of women want to leave all the drudgery of urban life behind and go swinging through the jungle on a vine with Tarzan. ‘Me Tarzan. Me climb tree. Get coconut. Protect Jane from hungry lion. Ride with Jane on elephant.’ But eventually, the jungle gets old if you like air-conditioning and Chinese takeout. My story is attractive to a lot of people, but it’s attractive like Disney World is attractive. Nobody rents a permanent room at the Polynesian Village; it’s a fantasy.

“Meanwhile, as much as it would be fun to change scenery for a week, I’m not fantasizing about going to Jane’s world. I’d enjoy myself some, and then remind myself why I don’t fit in with ‘normal’ company. I’m sure I’d be a great curiosity—the intelligent ape—the noble savage. And then I’d fly back to the Bahamas and curl up in a fetal position in the chain locker for a week.

Kaitlin closed her eyes and breathed slowly.

“But Kait, a connection is a connection. It isn’t necessarily a crazy fantasy, and it isn’t something I’d toss away. I’m just like you. I am hardwired to find my princess and live happily ever after—even if I already am living happily ever after.

“You’re a writer and a thinker. You get all the crazy stuff that floats out of my mouth. You hear it and spit it back to me—and it makes sense. You have your own dreams and goals and writing projects to stay engaged with—and I could support those. Most women your age have a biological clock that’s chiming like Big Ben, but maybe you don’t? I don’t know. I just think we need time—and I know we won’t get that if we go fog up the mirrors in my cabin.

“Keep your hand on the wheel of your ship and your eye on your compass and your horizon. Hold the pen and start writing. Good books take time. How often have you found yourself writing a story or a book where you watched the story unfold without having much to do with the process? Have you ever surprised yourself with the ending of your own book?”

Kaitlin sniffled. “I stressed out about that for months while I wrote my first novel. My characters did what they wanted and went to places I knew nothing about. I had to do all sorts of research to keep the story authentic. I had all these loose ends; I got all the way through the story, but didn’t know how to tie those ends together. And then I woke up at 3:00 one the morning and knew exactly how the book would end. I jumped out of bed and finished it. I claim no conscious responsibility for it. The book wrote itself.”

Strider kissed the backs of Kaitlin’s hands. “Do you think our story is any different? Do you think any good story is any different?”

Kaitlin shook her head gently.

“I know a different story of how our morning together might go had magically written itself in your mind? I hope I’m not a massive disappointment.”

“Not massive, but …”

Strider chuckled. “Believe me, I’ve been rewriting and rereading that same story for days. I just sense that you and I run a little deeper than a quick island frolic. I’m a story snob, Kait. As much as I’m a guy who lives alone in the wilderness who would desperately love to fall madly in bed with a pretty girl once in a while, I prefer a sophisticated story over a knock-knock joke any day.”

“One kiss?” asked Kaitlin.

“You drive a hard bargain, my dear. One kiss … and I’ll throw in all the hugs you can handle.”

From my memoir, The Blue Monk

February, 1991: Verdant Man-O-War Cay shines boldly against a turquoise sea on a blue-white winter afternoon. Gumelemi, seagrape, and poisonwood hammocks embrace white colonial houses. High hills encircle the anchorage, protecting the harbour from the sea. On the sea bottom, the dark figure of a nurse shark at rest contrasts with the lighter hues of sand and seagrass. Where everything is remarkable, nothing is remarkable. These colors are the stuff of daily experience.

At anchor in Man-O-War’s southeastern harbour, I regret my promise to care for John Nation’s cat for two weeks while he visits his mother in Oklahoma. The paralyzing favor has just passed its fifth week when Drew sails into the anchorage on Walden. Recognizing Blue Monk (by coincidence, she belonged to him many years before), he rows over in his fiberglass Whitehall dinghy, a traditional New England rowing craft—a long glass slipper of a pulling boat with a graceful, swooping shear and a wineglass transom.

When I first met Drew at Dinner Key, he sailed a wooden, double-ended sloop named Corentina. Her planks ran stem to stern without butt blocks or scarf joints. Drew cruised her up and down the American Atlantic coast and the Caribbean by himself. A capable navigator and a talented carpenter, he made a modest living with a captain’s license and a coping saw. Calling upon a wealth of sailing experience, his confident voice rumbled beneath his mustache over his brown beard, relating engaging stories of his many travels and adventures, punctuated by hearty laughter. I often joined him for morning coffee or an occasional moonlight sail. Sometimes, he’d disappear for months at a time but, like so many others, Drew always found himself called back to Dinner Key.

Beaufort, North Carolina was Drew’s second home port. On a whim, he would journey into the Gulf Stream alone for the week-long passage as casually as most people head to the store for a carton of milk. He sold Corentina when he found a bargain on Walden, a fiberglass, cutter-rigged Westsail 32. He quickly hammered her into cruising shape and resumed his wanderings.

Like myself, Drew is an aficionado of the spruce oar as a mode of locomotive power. Most cruisers depend on outboard engines and inflatable dinghies for transport. But while such craft make for fast, convenient transportation, oars always start on a cold morning and require no petrochemical fuel. As with sailing, a seakindly pulling boat, responding to subtle changes in angle and pressure on the oars, inspires a unique joy.

Rowing is a cultivated taste, a skill that comes with practice. Most people can’t even stand up in a proper rowing dinghy, but a good oarsman can balance on the breasthook while he steps from his dinghy to the dock, or flip himself from the sea into his boat without shipping water. Internal combustion has its merits but a long rowing craft, like its canvas-bearing counterpart, compels one to slow down, to focus on the journey rather than the destination. Brute force has little to do with proper rowing. With polished technique, one can row at a swift and earnest pace for miles. As the musician’s practiced touch squeezes the subtle, sweet essence from a string, an accomplished rower handles his sweeps and his vessel with an intuitive mastery that spirits him effortlessly across the waves.

Drew looks at Light Blue, my Chamberlain dory-skiff tethered behind Blue Monk. My tender is the same size as his Whitehall. He smiles mischievously. “Would you like to take a row?”

A northeaster is blowing. Even behind the sixty-feet-high coral hills that surround Man-O-War anchorage, brisk gusts of wind kick up a small chop.

“Sure. Where to? I imagine the seas are pretty choppy outside.”

“Let’s go to a beach, first,” Drew suggests, “to clean the dinghies. I hate rowing with a dirty bottom and I still have a few Dinner Key barnacles to get rid of. Then we’ll go rowing and end up where we end up.” He pauses and grins before continuing. “We don’t have to choose a destination to go rowing, do we?”

The question is rhetorical, but the suggestion to clean the dinghies is a good one. I do have some weedy spots on the underside of Light Blue though barnacles don’t grow in these clear, clean waters.

We row northwest toward town, up the narrow lagoon, past moored sailboats and the docks of white-planked Bahamian houses trimmed with pastel shutters, past paths lined with conch shells and coconut palms, to a small beach where we drag our boats ashore and turn them over. A few minutes with a sharp putty knife and a coarse scrubbing pad consign scrapings of unwanted marine growth to the sand. We flip the dinghies back over, push them into the water and climb aboard.

Clean, Light Blue feels faster, as if freshly oiled. She rows easily, gliding with enthusiasm.

Drew pulls ahead, not quite challenging me to a race, but wordlessly suggesting we put our backs into the pace.

A rocky cut in the side of hairpin-shaped Man-O-War Cay provides a narrow gate for its well-protected anchorage. We exit into the Sea of Abaco.

“There’s a coral head in the channel!” Drew remarks, looking down into water that’s still fairly clear in spite of being stirred up by the chop.

“The locals know where the rocks are,” I explain. “The channel is deep enough so most of them can go over it. The rest know to go around it. I doubt anyone will be coming by to install a marker, dynamite it or file a complaint.”

Drew smiles. He knows how it is in these islands. If you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t keep your eyes open, you don’t belong here.

The lee side of Man-O-War is scrub-covered coral—sharp gray rock covered by succulent plants with an overhanging shelf undercut by thousands of years of wave action. The waves are bigger here than in the harbour; they slosh musically under the rocky shelf.

We continue, pulling steadily, breathing hard but working toward a second wind.

Drew looks over to see how I’m doing. Light Blue can handle herself in a sea. I row enough and swim enough to stay in good shape.

I’m doing great.

We continue around the point to head northeast into the wind, toward the reef and the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

The waves grow bigger. The north wind has put the distant reef in a rage. The wind is lighter than expected, probably gusting to twenty knots, but these waves were sent by far stronger winds from higher latitudes. Driving into wind and sea, we pull up and over the crests. Atlantic swells roll in from the deep, trip over the drop-off and shatter against the coral ahead of us. A mile off the coast of Man-O-War, the reef line is a seething highway of white foam and exploding silver spray. Immense glass cannonballs detonate against a wall of impenetrable rock.

We pull harder, approaching the coral wall that demarcates the deep Atlantic from the shallow Bahama Banks—the third largest barrier reef on Earth. I wonder if we might not be engaged in a foolhardy contest, but our boats are dry, handling the waves as good pulling craft were designed to. We continue out over turbulent water, our bows facing a sky that fades from pastel blue to hazy white at the horizon.

The cut receives us—a sixty-foot deep, sixty-foot wide hole in the coral battlement worn by time, tide, and geological happenstance. To either side, rocky fingers of dull orange, brown, and green clutch at the sky through the foamy remains of spent waves. Black hills of moving water thunder spectacularly against unyielding coral, hissing and sizzling as they dissipate into rainbow mist. The power surrounding us is awe-inspiring. Many ships have met their ends on this coral; some of them lie in fragmented repose beneath us. How many people have witnessed nature’s fireworks at this proximity and lived?

I look for Drew. He’s two boatlengths away, on top of a wave, six feet above me.

Blue-black swells crowd through the cut, growing taller and closer together.

Drew drops below me as I’m carried up on the crest of the next wave.

Inside the cut, the swells find no coral to break against. They pile up on themselves as they roll from the deep ocean into the shallow waters.

Where are we? The reef is difficult to make out through the big rollers.

Drew hooks his head to one side, suggesting we turn back. It would not be wise to row past the reef line and miss the cut coming back in; we’d never make it over the coral. We’ve seen what we came to see. Past this point lies nothing but miles and miles and more miles of cobalt swell.

Atop the next crest, I take a mental bearing on the houses and the white beach of Man-O-War Cay stretching off to the northwest. Hopetown Light guards the coast of Elbow Cay to the east where the Abaco out-island chain curves abruptly south. The next instant, I’m lowered into a valley surrounded by blue, foam-streaked mountains. I time my turn carefully so as not to get caught broadside by the big seas. Long, light oars give us leverage to work with our boats and the tremendous forces surging beneath them. I have an advantage with my higher freeboard. Drew ships an inch of water over his low shear, but manages his turnabout.

We head back.

The seas move faster than our boats, but pulling hard, we can almost match their speed.

Drew synchronizes his pace with a wave.

I follow.

We’re surfing!

The pounding reef falls behind.

On this side of the coral, the shallow water pulses with an impressionistic watercolor glow. We glide over sand patches, seagrass beds, and coral gardens, pulling hard, straining to keep pace with the racing seas we ride. The incoming tide runs with the wind, flooding onto the banks, carrying us back to shore. The swells diminish as we distance ourselves from the coral, but these blue horses are charged with the power of a North Atlantic gale. Large enough to carry us briskly, they are strong enough to capsize our boats if they can catch us abeam. We time each wave, surfing with extended oars to control direction and balance.

Drew stays one wave ahead.

I can’t catch him.

We laugh and shout as we charge through the flying rollers.

Exhilarating!

I feel each incoming wave, gauging how the swell will lift; then pull and turn my tiny boat. By design, we row facing away from our destination. Atop the crests, I glance over my shoulder to take fresh bearings on Man-O-War’s rocky southeastern shore. That coast is no place I’d care to land in these conditions, but our course around the island’s point is true. After a long few minutes, we round the island to turn into Man-O-War’s lee, into the gentle chop behind its rocky shore, over the coral head that sits in the middle of the entrance channel, and past the piling marking the edge of the shoal inside the lagoon.

Seen from the Queen’s Highway—the jungle-shaded footpath that runs along the spine of the island—or perhaps from the white porch of a pink-shuttered Bahamian house on the harbour’s edge, two sun-darkened figures rowing into Man-O-War harbour are hardly remarkable, even with a norther blowing and the reef in a rage. Where everything is remarkable, nothing is remarkable. These colors are the stuff of daily experience.

A chapter from my upcoming book—The Story Story: A Voyage Through the Islands of Connection and Engagement for Writers, Speakers, Professionals, and Visionaries

- - - - - - -

The Metaphor skated through a mangrove-bordered entrance into a harbour embraced by traditional white colonial buildings and coconut palms and watched over by a tall, red and white candy-striped lighthouse.

After dinner, the Happiness Congress convened in its traditional configuration—scattered about the deck with cushions and blankets. “Who’s got Man-O-War Cay stories?” asked Strider.

Doug looked at Vincent. “Go ahead; you tell it Vince.”

“We found the baseball field while we were walking across town to the beach. You weren’t kidding about the reef being in a rage. The exploding waves out there were spectacular. One of the locals told us about the Adirondack, a ship that wrecked out there in 1862. Apparently you can still see her canons and boilers down there. We started talking about how totally nucking futs you were, Strider, to row out there in those conditions, when some wacko came blasting across the scene—on a windsurfer! We watched him dancing and playing in the waves, having the time of his life. I mean—the guy obviously knew what he was doing, but….”

“So far, that’s an anecdote,” said Strider. “It’s a potent one, but in this story—our story—the one where I dupe a bunch of castaways who came to study happiness into studying stories instead—the one where you all become master storytellers—you have not yet achieved transformation.”

Vincent looked flummoxed. “I don’t know where to start. I just found it impressive that that guy was out there sailing…”

Strider interrupted. “I think you found it meaningful. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have remembered it or told us about it. Did everyone get a good look at the reef today? Can everyone picture the conditions this windsurfer was out facing today?”

The happiness delegates all nodded.

“Take a minute and let your imagination wander. Create a story. What’s the reason for him to be out there doing that?”

“But how are we supposed to know why he’s out there, Strider? We don’t know anything about him.”

“Ah, but we are not his biographers. We are simply observers of the universe. This guy inadvertently shot a flare over your mind’s horizon. Let something about this man windsurfing over a hazardous reef pique your curiosity. Whatever that triggers beneath the surface of your own psychic water is not required to dovetail with Mr. Windsurfer’s personal set of factoids. Don’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Lenore put up a finger. “Is there any possibility he went out there and got in over his head—maybe he wasn’t expecting the conditions to be quite so hazardous—and then he managed to sail his way out of a bad situation?”

“No way,” said Doug. “You should have seen this guy blasting back and forth across the reef with waves exploding all around him. He was definitely out there on purpose.”

Audrey raised her wine glass. “Maybe he lost a loved one on that reef—and now, whenever the sea gods get angry, he goes out there to tease them—to challenge them?”

“That’s it,” encouraged Strider. “Find the stories.”

“I say he’s the world windsurfing champion,” offered Micky Tomm. “He’s won every contest and beaten every record. There’s nothing else left to win so he’s out there pushing his limits. He’s no longer content to win trophies; he needs to find ways to impress himself and keep the adrenaline flowing—even though he knows it will kill him one day.”

“A few days ago, he got really drunk,” said Kaitlin. “He bet $100,000 that he could windsurf up and down raging Man-O-War reef ten times without wrecking. If he loses, he’ll lose his house and his fortune; his family will have nowhere to live—and he’ll probably die. If he wins, he’ll find his confidence, make amends to his family, and never drink again. This is his day of reckoning.”

“Anyone else?” Strider looked around the circle.

“I think there was a hot girl on the beach who wouldn’t pay attention to him,” said Doug. “Some meathead was bragging about his car and asking her to keep count of how many pushups he could do in the sand. Mr. Windsurfer’s no bodybuilder, but he knows what he’s good at. Next thing you know, he’s rocketing through the coral heads and exploding waves out on the reef. Now all the ladies are cheering and paying zero attention to the hunky guy.”

“He’s got to be a motivational speaker,” said Walter. “The NSA holds a big convention every year. This is the National Speakers Association—the NSA that talks, not the NSA that listens. Some of the best speakers in the world attend, and so do a lot of up-and-coming newbies—which is all well and good. This convention is an absolute freak show. It’s full of brilliant and talented artists, scientists, thinkers, teachers, trainers, entrepreneurs, masters of inspirational hot air, narcissists, egomaniacs, and some of the most amazing and wonderful people you could ever meet. ‘Finding your story’ is a big theme within NSA, especially for new speakers who feel called to the platform but don’t necessarily have any idea what to speak about. You can have an absolutely outrageous story and then find the person you’re seated next to at dinner was born with no arms or legs, got burned in a fire, was wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, went blind, and then climbed Mt. Everest naked with his upper lip. He’ll sell you his international bestselling book, too. Someone at NSA will have you beat by a mile. Like I said, it’s a freak show. I have a good friend in the speaking business who’s in a wheelchair because of a plane crash. The joke he hears over and over—and it’s told as friendly sarcasm; people are not being insensitive—is that he’s lucky to have had his story find him. Everyone else has to figure out their stories and speaking topics on their own.

“I think Mr. Windsurfer is out there on the reef trying to find his story. He’s been cleaning up the park and changing out the trash bags, but he wants to inspire people. If he survives his trip across the reef, he’ll have the requisite bragging rights to exchange stories with the rest of us wackos at the next NSA convention.”

“You know,” offered Vincent, “it could be that this guy is just a really good windsurfer who has been sailing these waters for years. Maybe what’s extraordinary to us is just old hat to him. I have a friend who runs marathons all the time. I can’t begin to imagine myself running 2.6 miles—never mind twenty-six, but that’s just what he does. He’ll pop off 15 miles as a typical workout and think nothing of it.

“I know that’s a boring story, but take Strider for instance. Everything he does is new to us—sailing, rowing, baking bread, navigating—and talking about all sorts of stuff that has no business floating around in the head of a guy who grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. We’re all on an epic, mind-blowing journey through a world that’s as common as air to him.”

Strider crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against his sailbag seat. “I’m so proud of you all. You’re all telling stories. Let’s explore a few ways to think about them.

“Traditionally, it’s been taught that story plots all revolve around a conflict between an individual and one or more of seven forces: the individual themself, another individual, nature, the environment, technology, the supernatural, or a higher power.”

“There’s a lot of overlap there,” observed Kaitlin. “Why have a separate category for nature and the environment?”

Strider tossed his hat over the compass. “Some stories take place in cities or schools or other non-natural settings. Out here, there’s not much difference, but you could conceivably write a story about a confrontation that took place here in Hopetown. Your conflict might be with the townsfolk and not with the natural environment.”

“What about the supernatural versus a higher power. What’s the difference?”

Strider stroked his chin. “I think a ‘higher power’ is usually thought to be benevolent. If you write about witches or evil spirits, you’re closer to supernatural. Though … the supernatural isn’t necessarily evil. You might write about an earth spirit or an ocean goddess or a mermaid—and though that entity might be more powerful than you, it wouldn’t be a ‘higher power’ unless its role is to guide you or teach you or let you use some of its power so you can achieve transformation.”

Lenore extended a wine glass for refilling. “What were the conflicts on your list again?”

Strider counted them off on his fingers. “The individual, another individual, nature, technology, the supernatural. I left out ‘a higher power’ and ‘the environment,’ because I think ‘nature’ and ‘the supernatural’ have those covered for our story’s purposes.

“Let’s list the stories we have so we can see what the conflicts are:

“Lenore suggested he got stuck out there and had to make it home alive. I say that’s man versus nature.”

“Audrey said he lost a loved one on that reef, and now he goes out to challenge the sea gods.”

“That would be man against the supernatural,” suggested Doug.

“Or maybe it’s man against himself,” said Audrey. “He’s out there trying to deal with his own anger and grief.”

“I’ll do you one better,” said Strider. “What’s the difference? Most supernatural forces in a story are just personifications of some aspect of human consciousness.”

Audrey mulled that idea over for a minute and then nodded gently.

“Micky Tomm thinks Mr. Windsurfer is an adrenaline junky. He’s reached the top but still needs to climb.”

“Man against himself,” said Kaitlin.

“Kaitlin says Windsurfer dude’s drunken ways have caught up with him. He has one last chance at salvation.”

“It’s the new testament,” said Doug.

“So it’s man against himself,” said Walter.

“Or,” said Audrey, “it’s God’s law personified as the individual’s inner conflict—man against a higher power.”

“I guess we needed ‘higher power’ after all,” said Strider. “Good."

“Doug thinks Windsurfer dude wants to impress the ladies. What’s the conflict?”

Kaitlin jumped in. “This one is Mr. Windsurfer against another individual … though if you want to get psychological, you could say it’s man against nature. On a biological level, the women are attracted to a muscular man who can provide for them and their offspring. Windsurfer stud challenges the idea that brawn and braggadocio are ideal mate selection criteria.”

“That’s great,” agreed Audrey. “This is all pretty simple but not quite as cut and dry as I expected.”

“Walter, I love your story,” offered Strider. “I like it because it’s a story about someone trying to find their own story—and I like it because most people have no idea that professional speakers have a community and an annual convention. You made it funny and colorful. You made me want to check it out.”

Walter smiled. “It’s man versus himself, I suppose—in the story, I mean.”

“Or if the guy feels peer pressure to find his story,” asked Audrey, “could it be man versus the environment?”

Strider gave his guests a moment to test-fit that idea into their fast-expanding perspectives on stories.

“The right answer is the one that feels right to you,” he reminded them. “It’s not like scientists autopsied dead stories and created a taxonomy of seven precise story ‘blood types.’ All this stuff comes from people pondering the universe and trying to write an engaging story about how their own stories work. Linguists analyze stories and graph the frequency with which specific words appear. They produce graphs of ‘emotional arcs’ and other interesting tomfoolery. It’s a bit like trying to measure the interior volume of a football with a ruler, but you can’t fault anyone for using whatever tools feel comfortable in their hands to try to sneak a peek at the essential absurdities.”

“Where does my story fit in?” asked Vincent. “What if we’re making much ado about nothing? What if the people of Man-O-War go play on the reef every day? What if it’s our own perspective that’s limited?”

Strider exhaled deeply. “I think your story is the best of all, Vincent. You didn’t feel comfortable writing a story about Mr. Windsurfer’s conflicts so you wrote one about your own conflicts. Your story suggests that we can find extraordinary magic in ourselves if we stop thinking everything that impresses us is beyond our reach. Your story is a very upbeat take on ‘man versus himself.’”

“And that’s a powerful story theme,” added Kaitlin. “Harry Potter lives in a dingy room under the stairs at his abusive aunt and uncle’s house. The next thing he knows, he’s being whisked off to wizard school to study the magic arts. Readers ask themselves, ‘I wonder if I have any untapped magic potential?’ and the books sell by the millions.”

Walter raised his hand over his head. “I thought I was doing so well, but I’m back where I was before. I understand how to do this but I have no idea what to use it for. I’m not going to be teaching English any time soon.”

“Walter, as a speaker, if you understand your audience’s pain points, you understand their conflicts. These seven conflict categories we just discussed are universal themes. Use them to think about who and what your audience members are in conflict with. Tell stories that work with those conflicts. If you’re talking about teambuilding and conflict resolution, tell stories about an individual versus other individuals. If you’re talking about ethics, tell stories about man versus a higher power or the supernatural. If you want to motivate people, challenge them to think of extraordinary achievement as ordinary. If you want to teach them not to dump waste in the river, tell them a story about man versus the environment.”

“Okay, I get it,” said Walter, but how do I reconcile the seven types of conflict with the four elements of story?”

“First, you don’t have to reconcile anything. Study the story—or the listener—through the telescope and then through the microscope. Use either or both perspectives—or follow your gut if it says to use neither.”

“Okay, but…”

“Walter, when you’re hired to speak to an audience, how long do you talk for?”

“Usually about 45 minutes.”

“Why does a company put you on a plane, rent you a car, put you up in a nice hotel, and cut you a check for 45 minutes of talking? What do they expect you to accomplish in that short time that they can’t accomplish with all the talent and expertise they already have on board? I’d bet your hourly rate is often higher than the CEO’s”

“I think I get it,” said Walter. “I’m the fairy godmother. They don’t want a new planning process or a new technology initiative. They want someone to inspire them. They want fast transformation.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” Strider raised his hands heavenward. If you understand what they really want to achieve, you understand the transformation—and that has to be meaningful. Beating last year’s numbers is important, but not meaningful. You have to be a good enough storyteller to figure out where the real story of human struggle is—how showing up for work on Monday morning and punching a clock can somehow connect people to the essential absurdities. That’s transformation. If you tell a story in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the real path from conflict to transformation—in a way that connects with the types of conflicts your listener is confronting—you’ll be trusted and listened to because you’ll be perceived as authentic. Show them how to navigate from conflict to transformation in 45 minutes, and you will have delivered powerful, undeniable, real-life magic that changes lives and fortunes.

“Kaitlin, summary time.”

Kaitlin stood up. “Strider, we’ve got eight different stories here about one anecdote. I’m going to keep this super simple. We didn’t talk about it much; we just did it—but we took that windsurfer anecdote and each of us used it as the basis of a story. That took a lot of pressure off of me as a writer. I don’t have to find fully formed stories in my surroundings and write them down; I just have to take whatever the universe gives me and create a story around it. Given what we talked about back in Green Turtle—that there’s no such thing as absolute truth—that we can’t see anything but a tiny fraction of what reality contains—everything is fiction anyway. If the purpose of a story is to connect a listener to its meaning, as long as that story isn’t expected to be a journalistic recounting of facts—which suggests it isn’t really a story, anyway—it makes no difference whether the narrative is true or not.

“Once we shared our stories, we got into conflicts. Story plots revolve around a conflict between a person and one or more of seven elements: the same person who faces the conflict, someone else, nature, the environment, technology, the supernatural, or a higher power. You gain insights into stories by examining the types of conflicts they present.

“When it comes to connection and engagement, use the seven conflict types to shape your story so it resonates with the conflicts you’re listener is confronting. Feel free to mix and match. Invent new kinds of conflicts or cross a few off the list as needed.”

As night fell, the light at the top of the Elbow Cay Lighthouse at the west side of Hopetown Harbour turned on and began to rotate slowly.

“Aren’t we supposed to wait an hour after eating before we get in the water?” asked Kaitlin.

“Ah … and here we see the dark side of stories,” replied Strider. “Long ago some pseudointellectual housewife mommy reasoned that if little Johnny was full of Oscar-Meyer wieners and Fritos and chocolate cupcakes, his body must be diverting its resources to converting all that food into energy and poop—and therefore he’d have less resources to devote to the muscles in his arms and legs—the muscles he’d need for swimming. This theory sounded plausible and oh so deliciously erudite so she shared it with the girls in her mahjongg group and they agreed it made perfect sense. The next thing you know, they were all sharing this nonsense under the curlers and hair dryers at the salon, and while they waited on their nail polish to harden, and in the checkout line at the Safeway—the end-result being that millions of children who were amped up on sugary foods that were far more damaging than a dunk in the pool on a full stomach had to writhe and whine and convulse and bitch and cry while their mommies forced them to wait out their sugar blasts on terra firma.

“A plausible story—or even worse, an implausible story—can spread like measles if enough people are willing to believe it without question—and this is where evils like wars and racism and the notion that you actually get better deals on Black Friday come from.

The happiness delegates responded with a round of hearty applause.

Strider bowed. “I went off on a rant, didn’t I?”

Kaitlin giggled. “I guess I’ll go put my swimsuit on.”

This is unedited draft material, but it spells out the premise and the setting for my latest book.

Introduction

The reason for The Story Story is simple: Too many books explain why stories are powerful tools for engagement, and how to use storytelling techniques to forge stronger connections with colleagues, clients, friends, and family members. But these books are about stories. As insightful as some of them may be, few of them are stories unto themselves—an oversight this book aims to remedy.

The Story Story reads like a novel. The narrative—a Socratic dialogue of sorts—describes a group of diverse characters who encounter an unlikely teacher in a remote and beautiful wilderness. Together, they look into the sea, out into space, and deep within themselves to discover what stories are, why they’re important, and how they work.

The Story Story is a non-fiction book wrapped in a fiction book (a literary anomaly that will surely have the librarians out marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks!). You’ll encounter practical storytelling advice and techniques, explore the thinking and feeling behind stories, learn how stories flow through your psyche like blood through your veins, and find inspiration to rewrite the stories of your life and business. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy a few smiles along the way.

If you’re a writer or speaker, you’ll find ideas in this book you can use. If your language is business or marketing or science, you may be surprised to find that your stories follow the same rules as those of your literary colleagues. The same is true if you’re a visual, musical, or technological storyteller—or even a cook or a dancer. Though our individual stories are as unique as fingerprints, those magic swirls are found at the ends of fingers that share a common purpose—to touch and be touched.

And that’s enough of that. On with the story!

1. The Happiness Congress

The Happiness Congress was off to a less than ideal start.

The setting was inspiring enough. The tiny island of Moraine Cay in the northernmost islands of the Bahamas offered a pristine white beach any postcard would covet. If those sands had ever been walked on before, the wind and tide had long since erased any footprints. On the seaward horizon, waves from the deep Atlantic Ocean driven by a brisk northeasterly wind exploded against the barrier reef in dramatic coronas of spray. Beneath that spectacle, the clear, shallow waters of the Little Bahama Bank glowed as a band of vivid turquoise and aquamarine patches between the shore and the reef. At the seaward edge of the island, a band of coral extended like an encircling arm around a shallow, seagrass-bottomed anchorage where a lone sailboat bobbed gently. The pines of Little Abaco Island nine miles away—the “mainland”—and the radio tower at Foxtown rose at the far side of the glittering blue Sea of Abaco.

Small twin-engine planes from the South Florida coast had carried this year’s Happiness Congress participants over freighters and cruise ships in the Gulf Stream; across a surreal tapestry of submarine colors and shapes dotted with green, sand-rimmed islands; over a latticework of shoals and shallows on the backside of Abaco; and down onto a tiny airstrip in the pines—to a surprising and different world that lay less than an hour from American traffic and skyscrapers.

Three overpriced minivan taxis—three!—piloted by dark men chattering in marginally understandable Caribbean patois carried the seven-member group a quarter-mile down the S.C. Bootle highway to the ferry dock where Charlie Albury waited with his outboard-powered launch.

Mr. Albury was kind and encouraging as he answered questions in his Bahamian lilt about their tropical surroundings. He apologized for the spray as they set out against the wind across the Sea of Abaco, and he helped carry their bags down the dock to the beach when they’d reached their destination.

Charlie had sounded confident when he’d assured his passengers that Mr. King, their mentor and teacher for the ten-day retreat, would be along within an hour or so. He’d suggested they walk around the quarter-mile-long island, enjoy the beach, perhaps take a swim, and explore their surroundings until he got back. Everything about the trip up to that point had screamed, “joyful island adventure!”

But that was four hours ago. The sun was nearly burning the tops of the Abaco pines across the bay, and an incongruously chill February wind had stolen the romance from the setting.

Moraine Cay was not without shelter. A yellow and white wooden villa with a screened wraparound porch stood not far off the beach. It was all quite charming except for the locked doors and the oversized “NO TRESPASSING” signs, subtitled “Seriously! This Means You!”

As the light faded, the Happiness Congress discussed whether the extent of “trespassing” included the invasion of the screened porch on the side of the house opposite the wind, especially if stranded visitors needed shelter from the elements. Micky Tomm argued that the goal of the owners of the house and the sign was to prevent intrusion and damage—which would only be a minor problem if they broke a screen and spent the night on the porch; they could always leave some money behind to cover repairs. Audrey argued that it was the owners’ prerogative to define the terms and boundaries—not the visitors’ prerogative to interpret them; the sign offered no caveats or exceptions.

Several of the castaways were able to raise a signal on their cellphones, but nobody quite knew who to call or what to say the problem was. They had food enough—snack food but at least it was food—to get through the night, nobody was sick or injured, and they had all been delivered to exactly where they’d asked to be. The phone at the Happiness Congress office back in Orlando, Florida rang continuously through to voicemail. The prospects of anyone sending a boat out on a windy night to navigate around the coral heads and rescue them seemed remote. And where would they go once they got back to the mainland? Hopes for a comfortable evening rested on the elusive Mr. King turning up soon with the keys to the house and a compelling excuse.

They decided to hunt for driftwood. If enough could be found to make a suitable fire, they might stay warm on the beach. Barring that, Plan B would be to camp on the porch.

Weathered planks and branches were procured along with a few coconuts and a piece of blue seaglass. The scavenging operation was beginning to look as if it might produce sufficient fuel for a good-sized fire when Vincent, a young man who had arrived with a backpack and a guitar, asked if anyone had matches or a lighter. That scuttled plans for fire-building and dropped morale another notch.

Then Micky Tomm pointed out at the anchorage. A lone, lanky, sandy-haired figure clambered over the side of the schooner into a dinghy and began to row toward the dock.

A few minutes later, a shirtless man with bronzed skin wearing a pair of zebra print exercise pants—his smile missing one front tooth—stared up from his small boat at the Happiness Congress’s welcoming committee on the rickety pier. “Howdy,” he said slowly, “I’m Strider. I have a hot grouper stew on the stove if anyone is interested—and I’m guessing you all will probably appreciate some warm bunks once the temperature drops tonight.”

“You’re not Mr. King, are you?” asked Micky Tomm.

Strider laughed. “Nope. Just Strider.”

The castaways searched one another’s eyes.

Strider read their hesitation. “This isn’t the Untied States,” he assured. “Nobody’s going to hold you up or push you under. And it’s what—seven against one? You can spend the night on the beach if you want, but you’ll sleep better aboard the Metaphor.”

“You guys can do what you want,” suggested Audrey to her colleagues as she handed her bag down to the mysterious boatman and began to descend the ladder between his stabilizing arms, “but a hot stew and a warm bunk sound a lot better to me than freezing on a beach all night and feeling like a dumbass in the morning.”

Strider advised her to keep her weight low and centered until she was seated safely in the stern. “Anyone else? I can carry two at a time, plus bags.”

A half-hour and several trips later, the Happiness Congress and way too much luggage had been ferried out to the anchorage, over the rope railing, and onto the wooden deck of The Metaphor. Down below, the travelers arranged themselves on settees on either side of the main cabin. The promised fish stew and a few bottles of wine quickly restored their spirits.

“Before we get to introductions,” Strider intoned, “will someone enlighten me as to how you ended up stranded on an island in the middle of the Bahamian wilderness? It’s not often that…”

Micky Tomm volunteered an explanation. “We come from all walks of life—I’m a pharmaceutical company executive; we have a musician and a teacher, a scientist, a writer, a scientist, and a few others in our group. We’re all here for the Happiness Congress; we’ve taken time off to spend ten days talking about and studying the nature of happiness.”

Strider could hardly conceal his cynicism, but he decided not to antagonize his guests. “So you guys paid some serious money—I assume—to get marooned on an island in the Bahamas so you could study…?”

“Getting stranded wasn’t part of the plan,” assured Walter, a tall man propped up in the forward corner of the settee. He absentmindedly fingered his empty plastic wineglass. “We were expecting ten day’s accommodations and a well-respected teacher as part of the deal. Now I’m embarrassed to admit we all paid $5000 in tuition plus travel expenses for this little adventure to nowhere.”

Strider twisted his chin and closed his eyes. After a long moment, he spoke. “Well … you’re certainly not nowhere. In fact, if there ever was a somewhere, you’re smack dab in the middle of it. But there’s no way you can know that yet.

“I have a suggestion—on offer to make—and if my instincts are right, you’re all going to take me up on it. Why don’t you spend the next ten days sailing on the Metaphor with me? I can’t think of a better way to study happiness, and if anyone wants to jump ship, we’ll be here in the Abacos—only a quick ferry hop and a short, overpriced taxi ride from the airport.

“What about money?” asked Walter.

“Buy the groceries and be good company,” said Strider. “I’m not here to prey on your misfortune. I’m going to go topside and check the anchor lines. You folks discuss it. I’ll drop anyone who wants to bail out at the Green Turtle Cay ferry dock tomorrow.” Strider rose, offered a gentle bow to his guests, and ascended the companionway ladder.

Deliberations among the Happiness Congress were short. Strider seemed pleasant enough if a bit quirky. And if he was going to murder or rob them, he would have done so already. At sixty-two feet, the sailboat offered ample room and comfortable quarters. Ten days in the Bahamas aboard a classic wooden schooner certainly beat retreating to the airport and slogging home defeated.

Strider returned to the cabin. “Anyone leaving tomorrow?” he grinned.

“We’re all in,” said Audrey. “But why were you so sure we’d accept your invitation? We don’t know anything about you. And I’m not convinced you don’t think we’re a bunch of Bozos for dropping five grand on a ten-day workshop to study happiness.”

“I’m not convinced I don’t, either,” joked Strider, “I can’t think of a bigger oxymoron than “Happiness Congress,” but there’s one thing I know for sure: You are all invested in your stories … and stories are what happiness and the rest of the essential absurdities are all about.”

This is unedited draft material, but it spells out the premise and the setting for my new book. I’m churning out a chapter per day and enjoying my deep dive into the world of storytelling.

Introduction

The reason for The Story Story is simple: Too many books explain why stories are powerful tools for engagement, and how to use storytelling techniques to forge stronger connections with colleagues, clients, friends, and family members. But these books are about stories. As insightful as some of them may be, few of them are stories unto themselves—an oversight this book aims to remedy.

The Story Story reads like a novel. The narrative—a Socratic dialogue of sorts—describes a group of diverse characters who encounter an unlikely teacher in a remote and beautiful wilderness. Together, they look into the sea, out into space, and deep within themselves to discover what stories are, why they’re important, and how they work.

The Story Story is a non-fiction book wrapped in a fiction book (a literary anomaly that will surely have the librarians out marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks!). You’ll encounter practical storytelling advice and techniques, explore the thinking and feeling behind stories, learn how stories flow through your psyche like blood through your veins, and find inspiration to rewrite the stories of your life and business. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy a few smiles along the way.

If you’re a writer or speaker, you’ll find ideas in this book you can use. If your language is business or marketing or science, you may be surprised to find that your stories follow the same rules as those of your literary colleagues. The same is true if you’re a visual, musical, or technological storyteller—or even a cook or a dancer. Though our individual stories are as unique as fingerprints, those magic swirls are found at the ends of fingers that share a common purpose—to touch and be touched.

And that’s enough of that. On with the story!

1. The Happiness Congress

The Happiness Congress was off to a less than ideal start.

The setting was inspiring enough. The tiny island of Moraine Cay in the northernmost islands of the Bahamas offered a pristine white beach any postcard would covet. If those sands had ever been walked on before, the wind and tide had long since erased any footprints. On the seaward horizon, waves from the deep Atlantic Ocean driven by a brisk northeasterly wind exploded against the barrier reef in dramatic coronas of spray. Beneath that spectacle, the clear, shallow waters of the Little Bahama Bank glowed as a band of vivid turquoise and aquamarine patches between the shore and the reef. At the seaward edge of the island, a band of coral extended like an encircling arm around a shallow, seagrass-bottomed anchorage where a lone sailboat bobbed gently. The pines of Little Abaco Island nine miles away—the “mainland”—and the radio tower at Foxtown rose at the far side of the glittering blue Sea of Abaco.

Small twin-engine planes from the South Florida coast had carried this year’s Happiness Congress participants over freighters and cruise ships in the Gulf Stream; across a surreal tapestry of submarine colors and shapes dotted with green, sand-rimmed islands; over a latticework of shoals and shallows on the backside of Abaco; and down onto a tiny airstrip in the pines—to a surprising and different world that lay less than an hour from American traffic and skyscrapers.

Three overpriced minivan taxis—three!—piloted by dark men chattering in marginally understandable Caribbean patois carried the seven-member group a quarter-mile down the S.C. Bootle highway to the ferry dock where Charlie Albury waited with his outboard-powered launch.

Mr. Albury was kind and encouraging as he answered questions in his Bahamian lilt about their tropical surroundings. He apologized for the spray as they set out against the wind across the Sea of Abaco, and he helped carry their bags down the dock to the beach when they’d reached their destination.

Charlie had sounded confident when he’d assured his passengers that Mr. King, their mentor and teacher for the ten-day retreat, would be along within an hour or so.

He’d suggested they walk around the quarter-mile-long island, enjoy the beach, perhaps take a swim, and explore their surroundings until he got back. Everything about the trip up to that point had screamed, “joyful island adventure!”

But that was four hours ago. The sun was nearly burning the tops of the Abaco pines across the bay, and an incongruously chill February wind had stolen the romance from the setting.

Moraine Cay was not without shelter. A yellow and white wooden villa with a screened wraparound porch stood not far off the beach. It was all quite charming except for the locked doors and the oversized “NO TRESPASSING” signs, subtitled “Seriously! This Means You!”

As the light faded, the Happiness Congress discussed whether the extent of “trespassing” included the invasion of the screened porch on the side of the house opposite the wind, especially if stranded visitors needed shelter from the elements. Micky Tomm argued that the goal of the owners of the house and the sign was to prevent intrusion and damage—which would only be a minor problem if they broke a screen and spent the night on the porch; they could always leave some money behind to cover repairs. Audrey argued that it was the owners’ prerogative to define the terms and boundaries—not the visitors’ prerogative to interpret them; the sign offered no caveats or exceptions.

Several of the castaways were able to raise a signal on their cellphones, but nobody quite knew who to call or what to say the problem was. They had food enough—snack food but at least it was food—to get through the night, nobody was sick or injured, and they had all been delivered to exactly where they’d asked to be. The phone at the Happiness Congress office back in Orlando, Florida rang continuously through to voicemail. The prospects of anyone sending a boat out on a windy night to navigate around the coral heads and rescue them seemed remote. And where would they go once they got back to the mainland? Hopes for a comfortable evening rested on the elusive Mr. King turning up soon with the keys to the house and a compelling excuse.

They decided to hunt for driftwood. If enough could be found to make a suitable fire, they might stay warm on the beach. Barring that, Plan B would be to camp on the porch.

Weathered planks and branches were procured along with a few coconuts and a piece of blue seaglass. The scavenging operation was beginning to look as if it might produce sufficient fuel for a good-sized fire when Vincent, a young man who had arrived with a backpack and a guitar, asked if anyone had matches or a lighter. That scuttled plans for fire-building and dropped morale another notch.

Then Micky Tomm pointed out at the anchorage. A lone, lanky, sandy-haired figure clambered over the side of the schooner into a dinghy and began to row toward the dock.

A few minutes later, a shirtless man with bronzed skin wearing a pair of zebra print exercise pants—his smile missing one front tooth—stared up from his small boat at the Happiness Congress’s welcoming committee on the rickety pier. “Howdy,” he said slowly, “I’m Strider. I have a hot grouper stew on the stove if anyone is interested—and I’m guessing you all will probably appreciate some warm bunks once the temperature drops tonight.”

“You’re not Mr. King, are you?” asked Micky Tomm.

Strider laughed. “Nope. Just Strider.”

The castaways searched one another’s eyes.

Strider read their hesitation. “This isn’t the Untied States,” he assured. “Nobody’s going to hold you up or push you under. And it’s what—seven against one? You can spend the night on the beach if you want, but you’ll sleep better aboard the Metaphor.”

“You guys can do what you want,” suggested Audrey to her colleagues as she handed her bag down to the mysterious boatman and began to descend the ladder between his stabilizing arms, “but a hot stew and a warm bunk sound a lot better to me than freezing on a beach all night and feeling like a dumbass in the morning.”

Strider advised her to keep her weight low and centered until she was seated safely in the stern. “Anyone else? I can carry two at a time, plus bags.”

A half-hour and several trips later, the Happiness Congress and way too much luggage had been ferried out to the anchorage, over the rope railing, and onto the wooden deck of The Metaphor. Down below, the travelers arranged themselves on settees on either side of the main cabin. The promised fish stew and a few bottles of wine quickly restored their spirits.

“Before we get to introductions,” Strider intoned, “will someone enlighten me as to how you ended up stranded on an island in the middle of the Bahamian wilderness? It’s not often that…”

Micky Tomm volunteered an explanation. “We come from all walks of life—I’m a pharmaceutical company executive; we have a musician and a teacher, a scientist, a writer, a scientist, and a few others in our group. We’re all here for the Happiness Congress; we’ve taken time off to spend ten days talking about and studying the nature of happiness.”

Strider could hardly conceal his cynicism, but he decided not to antagonize his guests. “So you guys paid some serious money—I assume—to get marooned on an island in the Bahamas so you could study…?”

“Getting stranded wasn’t part of the plan,” assured Walter, a tall man propped up in the forward corner of the settee. He absentmindedly fingered his empty plastic wineglass. “We were expecting ten day’s accommodations and a well-respected teacher as part of the deal. Now I’m embarrassed to admit we all paid $5000 in tuition plus travel expenses for this little adventure to nowhere.”

Strider twisted his chin and closed his eyes. After a long moment, he spoke. “Well … you’re certainly not nowhere. In fact, if there ever was a somewhere, you’re smack dab in the middle of it. But there’s no way you can know that yet.

“I have a suggestion—on offer to make—and if my instincts are right, you’re all going to take me up on it. Why don’t you spend the next ten days sailing on the Metaphor with me? I can’t think of a better way to study happiness, and if anyone wants to jump ship, we’ll be here in the Abacos—only a quick ferry hop and a short, overpriced taxi ride from the airport.

“What about money?” asked Walter.

“Buy the groceries and be good company,” said Strider. “I’m not here to prey on your misfortune. I’m going to go topside and check the anchor lines. You folks discuss it. I’ll drop anyone who wants to bail out at the Green Turtle Cay ferry dock tomorrow.” Strider rose, offered a gentle bow to his guests, and ascended the companionway ladder.

Deliberations among the Happiness Congress were short. Strider seemed pleasant enough if a bit quirky. And if he was going to murder or rob them, he would have done so already. At sixty-two feet, the sailboat offered ample room and comfortable quarters. Ten days in the Bahamas aboard a classic wooden schooner certainly beat retreating to the airport and slogging home defeated.

Strider returned to the cabin. “Anyone leaving tomorrow?” he grinned.

“We’re all in,” said Audrey. “But why were you so sure we’d accept your invitation? We don’t know anything about you. And I’m not convinced you don’t think we’re a bunch of Bozos for dropping five grand on a ten-day workshop to study happiness.”

“I’m not convinced I don’t, either,” joked Strider, “I can’t think of a bigger oxymoron than “Happiness Congress,” but there’s one thing I know for sure: You are all invested in your stories … and stories are what happiness and the rest of the essential absurdities are all about.”

Discussions of English Language pet peeves provide an entertaining forum for the expression of ire. In fact, if a “pet” is something we cherish, and a “peeve” is something that annoys us, “pet peeves” are what we love to hate. Here’s a collection of common English solecisms—guaranteed not to literally blow your mind:

English Pet Peeves: Logic Problems

“I could care less.” – If you’re expressing disinterest, you couldn’t care less.

Every time I hear Paul McCartney sing, “But if this ever-changing world in which we live in…” I cringe. Correct usage is “… in which we live.”

“The reason why this happened is because…” – use either “why” or “because,” but not both.

    The reason this happened is because …

    The reason why this happened is …

To be picky, we can do away with “The reason” if we precede the cause with “because.”

    This happened because …

“Where’s it at?” – It’s at over there.

“Comprising of” – should be “comprising” or “comprised of.”

English Pet Peeves: Acronyms and Repetition

Why repeat the word that the last letter stands for (ISBN, VIN, ATM)?

Shouldn’t we get ISB numbers for our books?

Why don’t our cars have VI Numbers?

Why don’t we get cash from an AT Machine?

Redundancies

Plan ahead, plan for the future – Can you plan behind?

Hot water heater – Why would you heat it if it’s already hot?

Past history – As opposed to future history?

It was a very unique experience – Are there degrees of uniqueness?

Final conclusion – conclusions are assumed to be final unless you specify they’re preliminary

Pre-recorded – You can only record it once.

Pre-planned – Is this the time before the planning?

Reply back or respond back – “Back” is assumed.

First-ever – if it’s first, “ever” is implied.

Contradictions

Same difference – Please choose one.

Free Gift – Really? I usually pay for gifts.

Imaginary Words

The seminar orientated me to my new job responsibilities. (oriented)

We’ll conversate after the meeting. (converse)

Confusion and Abuse

“You’ve got two choices.” – usually means someone has one choice between two options.

“…on either side” – usually means on both sides

“It literally blew my mind” – usually means figuratively. Your head did not explode.

further vs. farther – farther refers to physical distance; further refers to figurative distance: “Is it more than a mile farther down the road?” “Yes, would you like further directions?”

lie vs. lay – To “lay down” means to spread baby duck feathers across a surface.

lose vs. loose – If your button is loose, you’ll lose it when it falls off.

everyday vs. every day – Summer rains are an everyday occurrence; they happen every day.

good vs. well – “good” describes character or desirability. “Well” describes status.

fewer vs. less – Use “fewer” with countable objects. Use “less” to refer to matters of degree or status: After the delivery, one less package left him with fewer to deliver.

advise vs. inform – to “advise” is to suggest. To “inform” is to present with factual information.

goes vs. says – “goes” is outright slang—not an acceptable substitute for “says.”

loath vs. loathe – “Loath” is an adjective meaning hesitant or unwilling. “Loathe” is a verb meaning to dislike.

discrete vs. discreet – “Discrete” means different or unique. “Discreet” means hidden or respectful of privacy.

moot vs. mute – The point was moot and not worth pursuing so Bill stayed mute on the matter.

incidences instead of incidents

ensure vs. insure – To “insure” means to purchase insurance. To “ensure” means to make sure: He insured his valuables to ensure their safety.

Irregardless – “regardless” with a skin tab

nuclear vs. nucular – “Nucular” is a mispronunciation of “nuclear.”

alot vs. a lot – “Alot” is incorrect; use two words to suggest “a lot full of items.”

.50 cents = half a penny

peaked vs. piqued – “Piqued” means to catch attention. “The coin piqued his interest but in a few moments, his curiosity peaked and then he moved on.

data vs. datum – data is a plural noun, often used incorrectly as a singular noun.

Weak Substitutions

doable vs. feasible – “doable” is an improvised “verb + able” word

use vs. utilize – “utilize” is pedantic and pseudosophisticated

momentarily – means for a very short time. When the pilot says, “We’ll be in the air momentarily, he’s implying that you’ll only be off the ground for a moment.”

Grammar

waiting on vs. waiting for – The attendant waited on the customers while they waited for their luggage to arrive.

should of vs. should have

different from vs. different than – “different from” is technically correct: The red ball is different from the blue ones. Use “different than” when making a comparison: Today, things are different than they were in 1980.

“One in ten people are …” – the subject (One) is singular, so use “is.”

Hollow Clichés and Crutches

“To be honest with you…” – can’t we assume you’re being honest?

“The fact of the matter is…” – an empty crutch phrase

“untimely death” – who schedules their death? These words cling together to form a tired cliché.

“back in the day” – does this mean breakfast?

Evolving Language

impact vs. affect – “impact” is not a verb, though its use as one is so widespread that it will probably become one.

who vs. whom – “whom” is fading from language to a point where many grammarians are discarding it like “thee” and “thou.” You’ll find a list of them in Who’s Whom? For Editors.

functionality vs. function – lots of common crossover here. Theoretically, a program with more functions has greater functionality.

What are your favorite English pet peeves? Or is it contradictory to have a “favorite” pet peeve?

Writers and publishers generally talk about selling books, choosing a path for printing and distribution, the importance of professional editing and design, and technical matters pertaining to grammar and style. But what about the path one takes to become a writer? Certainly, we must all learn about semicolons and apostrophes, but that journey is often inspired by an earlier and more profound one. From whence comes the call to translate vivid life experiences and ideas—the sublime, the horrific, the transcendent, the transformational, the imagined—into a form that can be shared? What does it mean to live the writer’s life—as opposed to the publisher’s?

A friend suggested I take a look at KatieAndJessieOnABoat.com, a blog created by Katie Smith and Jessie Zevalkink—two young women who made a long journey on a small boat. After turning a fixer-upper sailboat into a humble home, they made their way from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico. Destination: across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Their site is a chronicle of their thoughts, adventures, friends and photographs gathered along the way.

Back in the 1980s and 90s, I took off in a small sailboat with an even smaller amount of money to go find my own stories. I had remarkable experiences cruising solo in the Bahamas and crossing the Atlantic to Gibraltar. I had some of the best and worst times of my life on those voyages and today, I look back on my past without an ounce of regret over things I “should have” done.

Those were days before GPS and the Internet, before digital cameras, before Facebook and Flickr. I took photos (remember 35mm film?) and even created my own tongue-in-cheek edition of “Captain Dave’s Nautical News,” but recording and sharing my adventures was much more difficult then than it is today. Nevertheless, I had some inkling, even as a young man, that I would one day wish to write about my journeys. With that in mind, I took a few more chances and explored a few more blind alleys. “What can I do today that will be worth writing about?”

Before those voyages, back in the late 70s, my high school friend Gene Flipse introduced me to boating and Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Today, Gene runs Conscious Breath Adventures—one-week excursions to the Dominican Republic’s Silver Bank to swim with migrating humpback whales. His weekly cruise reports offer astounding views and descriptions of whales in the wild.

Katie and Jessie and Gene offer an important reminder for those of us who spend countless hours marketing our prose. The writer’s life—or at least a critical part of it—is not about publishing. The writer’s life is about stepping off the sidewalk into the woods, paying attention to details, and placing a certain amount of faith in the premise that because you survived all the days preceding this one, you’ll likely survive whatever you encounter today. Why not go for it? The writer’s life is about living a life worth writing about—even if you never set pen to paper.

Two decades after my sailing voyages, I’m still tapping away at the keyboard polishing up my old stories. But a few years ago, I decided I’d been away from the water too long and I bought myself a fifteen-foot open sailboat. It feels good to be out there having aquatic adventures again—even if they don’t span months and thousands of miles.

Your adventures may be different—not smaller, but different: parenting, adopting a stray animal, losing your job, starting a career, getting lost in an unfamiliar town, having a vivid dream, getting married, getting divorced, going blind, inventing something important that nobody will pay attention to—but these experiences are the stuff from which great literature is made. Publishing is a great adventure in itself and a noble endeavor, but of all its dangers and pitfalls, perhaps the greatest is the possibility that the demands of turning our books into products might distract us from the far more important process of having experiences and turning them into stories.

What can you do today that will be worth writing about? As the old saying goes, “you’re either talking about it or you’re doing it.” As your story transitions from experience to manuscript to book, don’t forget to live the writer’s life. There is none better.

Search for “one-sentence paragraph” on the Internet and you’ll mostly find questions about whether writing them is even an acceptable practice. The one-sentence paragraph is not only legal, it’s a useful and powerful literary device.

One-sentence paragraphs are common when short pieces of dialog are being exchanged, but consider the effect of serial one-sentence paragraphs in other contexts. The following excerpt from my memoir, The Blue Monk describes an ocean crossing in a small wooden boat:

The sun marches over our heads through a field of blue, burns the horizon beyond our wake, yields to the stars, purples the east, and rises before us again.

We are aground in a river of time.

We eat.

We sleep.

With the wheel, we turn the ocean round our boat.

Days pass like silken threads on hidden currents of wind.

Hours hover like dust revealed by a sunbeam.

Forever collapses into a moment.

There can be no other side, no destination.

There is only here, only now.

The wind falls light again.

We motor over calm, shimmering seas.

The narrative reflects on the passage of time at sea. Though it could have been written as a single paragraph, consider how isolating each thought affects the pacing. This is a marriage of prose and poetry, designed to be “read aloud” in your head. Pause at each comma. Stop at the end of each sentence. Let the words ring.

And consistent single-sentence paragraphs are not a strict requirement. This is writing, not math.

The sun falls below the pines of Great Abaco.

The wind picks up.

The temperature drops.

We drag my dinghy to the top of the beach and prop it on its oars behind us to serve as a windbreak. John had the foresight to gather dry firewood back at Man-O-War Cay. We add to his collection a few pieces of driftwood we find on the beach. Behind our dinghy shelter, a small flame begins to consume our branches and wood scraps.

Yellow sparks crackle and fly high into the fast-darkening night.

Stars gather overhead.

John points into the brilliant sky. “See the three planets grouped in a small triangle there? They’re what we’ve come here for. They won’t appear this close together again for over a thousand years.”

Have you ever taken a photograph of a sunset? The resulting image inevitably fails to capture the glory of the scene; a sunset cannot be put in a frame. Sometimes, effective writing requires the author to create a detailed portrait, but “paint by numbers” also works. Your reader has seen sunsets before, experienced cold, and sat near a fire. Why not offer clues to help your reader construct his own picture from his own memories?

Short, single-line paragraphs mimic the experiencing mind. Experience, in its pure form, transcends words. More words might convey the author’s picture of an experience at the expense of the reader’s. Why place your reader in your head when you can pull her into your scene?

As they say, “the devil is in the details.”

So get rid of the details.

Write succinctly and seriously.

One-sentence paragraphs cue your reader to stop and reflect.

Of course, Victorian verbosity is as valid a writing style as postmodernist minimalism. Good writing comes from choosing the right style for a particular passage, and not from any formulaic approach. The one-sentence paragraph is one technique among many—another color in the capable writer’s palette.