Inciting Incidents

I think it was mid-June when I showed up at Don Miller's Storyline Conference in Santa Barbara. It was a fantastic event and I won't soon forget his teachings, especially the words he used to describe an 'inciting incident'. He said it's a doorway you walk through that you will never be able to 'un-walk' through. Your life, from that moment forward, is forever changed. No matter what the event is, you simply have to keep moving forward and learn to deal with life post-inciting incident.

If you've spent any time on this blog, you know that moment for me was June 2009. I am still learning to live on the other side of the door (post-inciting incident) and figuring out how to live, work, play and relate after passing through the door of a terminal cancer diagnosis. If it's your first time here, I apologize because I think I just ruined my chapter for you.

While I've been approached about writing this story in the past few years, I've been rather hesitant. Honestly, I'm somewhat of a moron and I don't think I've learned nearly enough to pass along any form of life-changing wisdom to any one else. However, I did have the thought, maybe 'the lesson of the in-between' is a worthy essay topic in and of itself.

What to do when you you've walked through the door, but you don't have any solid answers yet? What happens if the results of your climactic moment are yet to be determined?

My friend Sarah Cunningham (author, fellow Michigander & super-mom) helped me figure out how I could contribute this concept to this collection of stories. I warned her that she'd have to be responsible bear the weight of my inexcusible and unexplainable use of commas and for some strange reason she still agreed to include me. Considering I've got to get my feet wet sooner or later, I decided to begin by writing one simple excerpt that somehow encapsulated this inciting incident in my life. So I contributed my chapter, To Be Determined. (In fact, the publisher thought I was still deciding on the title and gave me a new chapter title, but I had to go back and explain to them this actually WAS the title.)

So this is the result! The book (and the corresponding website) is Inciting Incidents. I'm pleased to take part in the launch of a this book with other amazing storytellers including Sarah Cunningham, Jeff Goins, Dave Hickman, Blaine Hogan, Tracee Persiko, Stephanie Smith and Mandy Thompson.

If you stop by the website there's some other stuff you can check out, including Moody Radio's hour-long 'NPR style' interview you can listen to here. They managed to fit my story alongside the other contributors in a pretty raw, yet beautiful interview. (I considered this practice for my Fresh Air interview that I plan on doing with Terry Gross one day.) You'll also notice the button where you can submit your own Inciting Incident. I think you should do this. It's one thing to talk about your life-changing moments, yet quite a different experience to write about them. To refine an experience into words on paper is both magical and frightening all at once.

The book is now available for sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or you could drop by my mom's house. She's famous for collecting important wares (collecting stacks of specific newspaper articles and/or printing multiple ink photos on our home computer) and giving them away to friends, neighbors, strangers, etc... 

Also, on a semi-related note, the beginning of this whole process started a few years ago at the Story Conference in Chicago which is happening again this year on September 20-21. I've been lucky enough to participate the past two years and I'll be back again this year to discuss this book, as well as host one of the afternoon sessions. I'm really excited to be introducing the audience to old friends of mine like The Soil & the Sun, and new friends like, Isaac Rentz and Mason Jar Music.

(Side-note: Man, it's been a long time since I've used a side-note! Don't tell anyone else, but I actually managed to get you a coupon code! If you sign up for the conference use the code: "STORYLINE". You'll get $50 off the price. But this is only for you so don't tell anyone else.)

It's time to move on past my rambling and share with you the first page or two from my selection. They told me I had 4,000 words. I think I used about 6K. I apologize in advance. A few additional annoucements which I'm sure the publisher wouldn't like me to share. The proper use of the 'F-bomb' was rather understandably turned into 'Screw', which was (somewhat unjustly according to me) further neutered into the word 'Ignore'. 'Sucks' (a word my mother never allowed us to use) was turned into 'stinks'. Additonal concepts you can look forward to seeing include: Andre the Giant on crack, faux Kung-Fu battles in hotel lobbies, BASF, the Braveheart soundtrack, and a reference to modern-day goat-herding. Enjoy!

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To Be Determined - 

 The first thing you should know about me is that I am a ghost. 

I, via the moniker of RobinHood Ink., offer creative consultation, develop content, and write on behalf of other people. But the bulk of my work lies in helping others understand, explain and share their stories. You don't know my name and, well, that's the whole point of being a ghost. After working in media for nearly ten years, very little, if anything, has ever been attributed directly to me. My job as a ghost is to stay in the shadows and now, writing for myself, I find myself having to step out into the light. This is uncomfortable. 

I’m rather content to remain unheard. A large part of me really likes to move quietly between projects serving in this creative role, while continually dancing around the issue of becoming a spokesperson for anything or anyone. As a “paid creator” working in the world of amplifying messages for inspirational or spiritual thought, I like the romantic notion of saying I only work on a product because of the positive message being presented. But to be honest, I know of very few creative professionals who pay the bills with this mentality. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to base my work solely on the message. But as I enter my third decade of life, I’ve seen and heard too much to believe that every project I work on actually stands for the truth, or maybe, the Truth, or whatever you were looking for. 

To put it bluntly, I work for a person, backed by a company, supported by a distribution partner capable of putting together enough money to declare their idea the loudest.

That makes me an inspirational arms dealer.

Now that you know this—that I’m a ghost, that I’m a hired gun—I can tell you my job is pretty easy, even formulaic. All you have to do is discover and share the results of the story at hand, with others who want to see similar results in their lives. That’s it. If you can’t provide these measurable and manageable results, whether the product is religion or widgets, the story you’re trying to sell is dead in the water. So as an expert storyteller it’s my job to help you deliver the results of your life or your business to your desired audience.

Call it what you want: “Storytelling 101,” “Woe-to-Win,” “Three Act Structure,” “Save the Cat,” etc. In the Christian world, it’s the wilderness to Promised Land journey or the crucifixion to the resurrection. They’re all saying the same thing: “I was here, then this bad thing happened, then this good thing happened, and now, based on these provided results, I’m better than before.” 

It’s lovely to hear stories like this, all nicely wrapped up with a bow on top. And providing this service is a phenomenal way to build a business, work with fancy clients, create income, and set yourself apart as a storyteller. A simple statement, as difficult as it may be to accept, is that we don’t actually live our lives in the same way we tell our stories. Closure is a luxury we don’t always get at the end of our days. We don’t wrap up lives like half-hour sitcoms with a lesson learned and a nice family hug. Or, at least, if you feel this is representative of how you live, don’t tell others because they’ll most likely start to hate you. 

It was made clear to me a few years ago that I can’t honestly say that I’m living the kind of story I’m selling.

It began in June of 2009, when I was re-educated in the frivolity of pursuing a man-made, results-oriented life during a 24-hour period in which a series of small and bizarre events unfolded. In a single day, I was transported into a new universe where what I previously knew was no longer enough. The experiential insurance I had built my past on didn’t cover the new struggles that lay ahead of me. My previous understanding of love was shown to be ridiculously stunted. My ability to both understand and offer forgiveness was shown to fall flat, like a cardboard stage prop. These defining moments led me toward a personal decision that I could choose to participate in, to decline or accept, like a baptism offering me an opportunity to move from death to life, from ghost to rebirth. It was up to me whether or not I would accept a new, yet unknown, ending to my story.

Since my story is based on true events, most of which stink, I am unable to promise you the “better than before results.” All I can do is offer an invitation for us to set aside our human desires for manufactured, results-oriented success stories and maybe, just for a moment, accept that many of us right now are fighting really difficult battles or, possibly worse, wandering aimlessly. Sometimes there are no easy formulas to apply in order to get the results we originally wanted. 

This is that type of story. I, even as an expert storyteller, have no results to offer you. 

Yet.

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Purchase the book here.