conversation is an engine

Do You NaNoWriMo?

It’s funny that those stories we’ve lived in since childhood were written by someone. Made up, one word at a time.

Books. Movies. Plays.

All made up.

By someone.

Writing.

Game of Thrones. Lord of the Rings. The Great Gatsby. Even Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man. All made up. Maybe they carried pieces of older stories, but someone composed them. We know the names of the authors.

At some point in life I realized these very complete little worlds that seemed so alive were actually fiction. Funny that something made up could prove so real for so long. So concrete. But I had to pull back the curtain to realize this.

At some point—a bit later—I realized there was actually quite a lot made up: much of human interaction is made up (we call it “culture”). Oh sure, it presents as concrete reality, but behind the scenes people were literally making things up every day.

Business is a great example. Walk into a brick and mortar superstore and it seems like it’s been there forever. But we know they huge multi-million dollar inventories come and go. Same with banks. Same with restaurants—especially restaurants. Even the big institutions that are the pillars of our communities are making it up as they go. Sure, the rules of the game are there and seem to be unchanging as if handed down on stone tablets. But nothing is certain about business.

If you’ve ever been in a start-up company you’ll know that making it up as you go is expected. We need more folks willing to leap into the void of making it up. I believe making it up on paper translates to words which translates to action.

National Novel Writing Month is upon us again. And I’m joining in. It’s likely this blog will suffer inattention. But the challenge of creating a story from nothing (or more likely, from the disjointed and broken story-bits laying about in my mind and yours) is too great to resist.

National Novel Writing Month is a relatively painless way to try to produce a coherent story. Or, if not coherent, than at least something that has 50,000 words.

Where are you exercising your make-it-up muscle these days?

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Image credit: Alli Livingston. Photo: Kirk Livingston