Storyteller's Perspective: Make 2015 the Year of Stories!

In the spirit of filling up 2015 with stories both new and old, here are 10 things you can add to your New Year's resolutions!

1. Collect some family stories
Now is the time to buy a digital recorder (or fire up your smartphone) and visit Grandma, Auntie, or Second-great-uncle-in-law down the street, and record a few hours of their recollections. Believe me, you will thank yourself later. Or someone else in your family will thank you.

2. Dig down to your roots
Do some genealogy research (and revel in the fact that many archives are now digitized). Find out where some of your ancestors came from. See if you can dig up some stories about them, or the moments in history that directly affected them.

3. Relive traditions
Go visit the library and find some folktale collections from the cultures your family came from. Read them.

4. Cook something sweet
Buy a notebook and write down some family recipes. Ask around. Write the recipe on one page, and write personal notes on the other - who you learned it from, where it came from, who cooked it best, who made the biggest mess at first attempt, etc.

5. Diversify
Find stories from cultures you don't know about (but always wanted to ask). Seek out storytellers that visit from far away. Find lists of authors who have a different perspective. Enjoy, appreciate and promote diversity in all forms of story.

6. Attend a storytelling event
Look around for story circles, concerts, festivals, or other storytelling events in your area. Go visit them. Enjoy.

7. Make a new personal storytelling tradition
Make a little time in your day (or week) for stories. Bedtime is great, but sometimes it just doesn't work out - but don't fear! There are other options. Listen to a storytelling CD on your way to work. Share an anecdote with a friend over lunch. Write a blog post length story every weekend. Or every day.

8. Follow the path
Find and follow people of story on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other social media. Enjoy the tiny snippets of story news every day.

9. Time capsule
Record some of your own stories for posterity. They don't have to change the world. Imagine that you are making a time capsule and you have to include the five (ten) most significant events in your life. Write down the stories. Store them in a good place. When the time comes, share them.

10. Fund a storytelling project
Go on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or another crowd funding website, and look around for stories. Spend a few bucks funding the ones you would love to hear (or read). Treat yourself to being a midwife to a new story.

+1. Don't forget to participate in the 2015 A to Z challenge! Share your stories!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Csenge (@TarkabarkaHolgy)
The Multicolored Diary - Adventures in Storytelling
MopDog - The crazy thing about Hungarians...

Characters Who Blog

It's Christmas Eve, one of the most magical days of the whole year. The stockings are hung by the chimneys with care and we join together with our friends, family and loved ones to celebrate. I thought long and hard about which character most deserved a chance to speak out on this special day (for there's no shortage of Christmas folklore to choose from), but there's one in particular that seemed desperate for a chance to share his story. A cold-hearted miser who learned the true meaning of Christmas . . . 

I hope you enjoyed checking out Ebenezer's blog! And no matter which holiday you're celebrating this time of year, in the immortal words of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, everyone." 

This Week on the Road: Bubbles, Poems and Smiling Faces #atozchallenge #roadtrip

Participants in the 2014 Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge are like that box of chocolates that Tom Hanks referred to in the comedy “Forrest Gump.” You never know what you’re going to get when reading any one of them on this year’s sign-up list. 

That is one of the reasons why the Road Trip encourages bloggers who did the April challenge to continue visiting new blogs that may have been overlooked several months ago. So in the spirit of giving this season, let’s give our fellow bloggers some new readers and some more blog comments. If you need a guide on where to start as you get back into the swing of things, here is the latest activity happening in our A-to-Z community.

A well-travelled, South African bred drug and alcohol counselor who lives in Australia has organized two plans for nourishing the soul in 2015, at QueasyPeasy. Her first plan of activities centered on eating well and getting organized include pink bubbles and a hammock. The backup plan allows you to recharge with naked handstands and selfies…you know…for those days when completing all of your New Year’s resolutions gets to be too much to handle. Peter Heppo at Sleepless in Singapore gives some lessons in English dialect while recounting his battle through a Christmassy tourist destination where his friends were sharing beers and receiving Easter Eggs from young girls dressed as holiday elves. Speaking of the holidays, Eve Gaal at Intangible Hearts sucks readers into a poem that toasts to real friendships that need no explanation. 

Nerd in the Brain is practicing an exercise in gratitude by sharing things that induce smiles. The pride of passing down crocheting skills to the next generation, handmade postcards and yarn displays at the library are among these things. Who knows what happened to the blog Three Foolish Fisherman after its author shaved off her hair for MS Society Cymru? Since ALL of her blog posts from this year’s A-to-Z Challenge are also still up, they’re worth a read by any of you who missed them back in April. Owning “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “The X-Files” clearly make her worth visiting, even if it’s for the archives!

What topics have YOU come across on the new blogs you visited this week?

A-to-Z Challenge Co-Host Nicole Ayers writes about the magic of movies at The Madlab Post. Connect with her @MadlabPost on Twitter.