Storytelling and Steering your Boat to the Stars

I was feeling all over the place as a writer the other day, so I created a picture to help remind me of who I am and what I want to create, how I want to create it, and why.

I drew a stick figure (me) in a boat (my story) on the sea (the energy that drives the story) with a star up ahead in the sky (my North Star). Then I listed three adjectives for each. For myself I chose funny, brave, smart, but after I thought how those three felt, I changed brave to quirky. For my story I chose transformative, funny, lovable. For the energy driving my story I chose dynamic, deep, loving. For my North Star, I chose peaceful, alive, beautiful. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to explain my choices to you. They are about what felt good to me—you can choose what feels good for you if you want to participate. There’s no right or wrong.

As a chronic people pleaser, it can be helpful for me to create boundaries in so many aspects of my life, including the ones I mention above. A captain who is focused on her own journey is more apt to get there, I believe, then one focused on what other people think of her journey.

By listing all these adjectives, I can help ground myself as storyteller (funny, brave, quirky) knowing what sort of thing it is I want to create (transformative, funny, lovable). I can know what kind of energy I would like to be feeling as I sit down to write (dynamic, deep, loving). Finally, I can know why I am being or doing all these things—so I can head for a place or state of being that is peaceful, alive, and beautiful.

These adjectives aren’t set in concrete. They can change as you change, as your story changes, as your energy changes, as your North Star changes. But I think in order to finish a project, it can be helpful to be focused. Walt Whitman said he contains multitudes, and I would argue that you do, too. You can have many ships, many oceans, many north stars, many ways of being in your body, but if you want to actually finish something, see what happens if you take it bird by bird, as Annie Lamott suggests, and float as a unit: one boat, one body, one sea, one star at a time, and see what you create.