BEST DEAL FOR BETTER DAYS? READ ALL ABOUT IT

The best deal for you?

You’re looking for clues to a better life on a blog?

When has a writer ever served that up?

The clue lies in reading.

Everyone reads, right?

I remember when reading was on the way out.

It’s still on the way out:

 

While English teachers mourn the death of reading, they should consider the effect that their English curriculum has on their students, and how they can reinstate a passion for literature in them that has since died out.

Reading is about enjoying yourself, about discovering new stories and going new places.

Reading is not math or science; the words should not be broken down until they have no meaning.

Reading is an experience, and if we teach students the right way to read, we can teach them the right way to love reading.

 

The Best Deal For Readers

Writers are active people, busy people, but they don’t look like it while they’re at work.

“You call that work? Sitting at a desk isn’t work.”

It’s work of a different kind.

I read a piece about a famous writer signing his books after a reading.

One of his fans asked how he writes such great books.

 

“I could send you to a corner two blocks away where a man would tell you the most amazing story you’ve ever heard. My job is making two million people feel like they’re listening on the same corner.”

 

Reading is work if you do it right. It’s hard to start a book with high hopes then put it down because life is too short to spend time on disappointing books.

It’s hard finding a good book and finishing it when you wish it would never end.

 

Capturing Readers

Who hasn’t finished reading a book then found another by an author’s blurb on the back?

Or found a book on the library shelf next to the one you’re looking for?

The best deal is taking a chance and reading a few pages.

Then read a few more and get into the rhythm.

Whether you finish a book or not, you can take the rhythm with you and leave the book.

Think of it like a song with a good beat and easy to dance to.

 

Learning New Stuff 

Do you remember the first stories you heard?

If they were bedtime stories, did they go like this:

The bedtime story was a highlight of the time when my kids still listened.

It didn’t last as long as I thought it would.

On one hand I told stories so bad that my youngest kid taught himself to read, then the older picked it up, and my three and five year olds graduated to their own reading lamps.

Was I a bad story teller? You tell me:

 

Once upon a time Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water, but they got lost on the way and ended up in the woods.

One of them had a piece of bread and left a trail of crumbs that Winnie the Pooh found and ate.

They came upon a house in the woods with a big bad wolf dressed like a grandma.

 

First one kid: That’s not how the story goes.

Then the other: That’s not how mom tells us.

 

Why not find a way to tell your story?

It might be fun.

 

We are the stories of our lives, but how we tell that story requires our own unique recipe.

Start with story circle, add improv, a pinch of standup, a smidge of story theatre and a bit of drama and you have a true and rewarding concoction.

Whether it’s storytelling, presentation, theatre, comedy or public speaking, learn to tell your story using the art of the actor in a non-threatening, creative environment.

 

What’s your best deal for better days?