Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Title, title is everything

I did a fair share of reading today, and I also rested more than usual in the morning. My hands and legs just had a difficult time feeling any energy in them until I allowed myself to sleep more. By finishing up a book I had started reading on my Kindle at least two months earlier, I guess I gave myself permission to choose a new one to start. (But I cheated some, in choosing Neil Gaiman's Stardust...I've started reading that one before). It tricked me back by being different from the movie, and seeming somewhat different from that first version I read, which had been in graphic novel form.

When I finish some other author's work, it always sparks my own creativity. This book I just finished, it made me question what my soul's intent might have been in deciding to be a human inhabitant "in space and time." Perfectly proper language for me -- I apologize if that sentence is a bit jarring for any reader. The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell YOU is better than it sounds. I am already a fan of the author, Mike Dooley, and his Notes from the Universe (daily inspirational email pep talks ... from the Universe).

The phrase I came up with in answer to my questioning my soul-self, well, it seems like a good book title to me.

Seeking an Audience -- which, to me, has at least a double meaning. I have always selected an observational post, like always choosing to watch movies; an audience member. Then I also remembered that phrase, "seeking an audience," is used when a person asks to "be seen" by royalty, or just another person of some power and influence.

Secretly, I want an audience. I admit that I have not always been clear with myself what I really want to provide my own audience. Do I simply want to be seen? Is it to be in the form of storytelling (either writing or performing)? I am a big fan of film directors that put their own mark on the written and performance work of others -- yet really, I don't see myself as that active an interpreter of story. I like receiving the emotional impact, I'm not sure I know how to pare and influence the dynamics of a story to craft an intended impact.

I get satisfaction from the approval of others. That has always defined me. It has not always served me well. I'm ambivert, not extroverted, which means that I CAN stand up in front of people to talk, maybe even sing, given the motivation. Yet I can be slow to approach anyone for conversation. I need some reason that overrides a general shyness -- there's the introverted side. Most of the time I am very curious about other people's conversations and their quest for information, but I do my best to let my introverted side dominate in those situations, or I'd come off as an overly excited know-it-all, desperate to be in the conversation.

So, I could stay safe in the arena of recapping or reviewing -- both things I have done successfully for a space of time -- or I allow something brand new to gain the audience (which I do not have to worry about defining) as I write it. I still like the title. If I want to stay a little safe, then it might be a title for a memoir. That's a type of reality recap that I have not tried.