Years ago, I found a way to recognize and collect these moments, and it has changed my life. It’s turned me into a storyteller with an endless supply of stories. Stories that don’t rely upon near-death experiences or unlawful imprisonment or homelessness to be effective. It’s also made me a happier person.
Let me explain. Back in 2013, I was becoming desperate. I’d been telling stories onstage for almost two years, and I was head over heels in love with storytelling. As I continued to perform night after night, I realized two things:
1. I needed more stories. If I was going to continue to perform, I was going to have to generate more content.
2. The stories that my friends initially thought would be great — the near-death experiences, the arrest and trial for a crime I didn’t commit, sharing a bedroom with a goat — are all good stories. Audiences love them. But the story about Charlie throwing his food and my wife uncovering my childhood secret — a tiny story that takes place at a dining-room table between a husband and a wife — that’s the kind of story that audiences love best of all.
Here’s why: If I tell the story about the time I died on the side of the road and was brought back to life in the back of an ambulance, it’s going to be challenging for an audience to connect with my story and with me. It might be exciting and compelling and even suspenseful, but audience members are probably not thinking, “This is just like the time I died in a car accident and the paramedics brought me back to life!”
There’s nothing in the horror of a car accident for an audience to connect to. Nothing that rings true in the minds of listeners. Nothing that evokes memories of the past. Nothing that changes the way audience members see themselves or the world around them. But if I tell you about my secret childhood hunger, that story is much more likely to resonate with you.
Why? We all have secrets that we hold close to our hearts. Maybe it’s a secret that you never want anyone to know, or maybe it’s one that you desperately wish someone would uncover. Or maybe, like me, you had a secret that was discovered by a friend or loved one. Either way, we all know what it’s like to have a secret like mine. We know how powerful and painful secrets can be.
We all know what hunger feels like. We know what it’s like to want something important and essential — food, friendship, acceptance, love — but never to have enough of it. And we all know what it’s like to feel embarrassed or ashamed of never having enough of something that you so desperately need.
If you’re a parent, you also know what it’s like to want your children’s lives to be better than your own. You understand the desire to fill that lunch box to the brim with food.
This is why tiny moments like the one at my dining-room table with my wife and children often make the best stories. These are the moments that connect with people. These are the stories that touch people’s hearts.
The story about my wife uncovering my childhood secret, in the full seven-minute version, is one of the most popular stories that I tell, but it’s not terribly funny or suspenseful or extraordinary. It doesn’t involve a near-death experience or law-enforcement officers or indoor farm animals. It’s a simple moment between a husband and wife that has come to mean so much to me, and in turn to many of my fans.
This is not to say that the big moments, like the time I died on the side of a snow-covered road two days before Christmas (I tell this story in chapter 13), can’t make a great story, but it turns out even these big stories need to be more about the little moments than the big ones. We’ll get to that in a later chapter.
As I said, there was a point at which I realized that I’d need to start finding more stories to tell. I couldn’t wait for the next time my heart stopped beating or the next time I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. I needed to find these little moments. I needed to hunt them down. My goal was to identify the small stories that existed in my life already.
I’ve been a schoolteacher for almost twenty years, so it was only natural that I assign myself homework. I assigned myself Homework for Life. This is what I did:
I decided that at the end of every day, I’d reflect upon my day and ask myself one simple question:
If I had to tell a story from today — a five-minute story onstage about something that took place over the course of this day — what would it be? As benign and boring and inconsequential as it might seem, what was the most storyworthy moment from my day?
I decided not to write the entire story down, because to do so would require too much time and effort. As desperate as I was for stories, even I wouldn’t be able to commit to writing a full story every day, especially if it wasn’t all that compelling. Instead I would write a snippet. A sentence or two that captured the moment from the day. Just enough for me to remember the moment and recall it clearly on a later date.
I also allowed myself to record any meaningful memories that came to mind over the course of the day, in response either to something I added to the spreadsheet or something that came to mind organically. Oftentimes these were recovered memories: moments from my past that had been forgotten for years but had returned to my mind through the process of doing Homework for Life.
To do this work, I decided to use an Excel spreadsheet. It works well for several reasons. First, it forced me to capture these moments in just a few words. As you can see, my spreadsheet is broken into two columns: the date and the story. That’s it. As a result, I don’t allow myself to write more than the story cell allows. For a novelist who is accustomed to writing hundreds and sometimes thousands of words per day, the temptation to write more was great, but I believe in simplicity. I believe in strategies that are easy to apply and maintain even on our busiest days. This is the best way to develop a habit.
| 10/29/15 | Jaime and Monica’s wedding: First family wedding ever. So much was missed that can never be recovered. Always feel like an outsider. |
| 10/30/15 | Hit the ball onto the first green again. |
| 10/31/15 | Elysha is horrified by my Meatloaf Pandora station. |
| 11/1/15 | Didn’t connect my work voicemail until November 1. Only missed one call. Kids answering phone. Kids protecting me from phone call. |
| 11/2/15 | Started taking yoga. |
| 11/3/15 | I couldn’t wait to get to school today to see David and hassle him about the Giants. More than anything else. Crazy. |
| 11/4/15 | I went through the tollbooth on the bridge without any money or my EZ Pass. Terrified. Worried about strangers when I normally don’t care. Berated by tollbooth operator. Ticketed. |
| 11/5/15 | Taught Clara about the Rolling Stones while lying in bed with her. |
| Walked Kaleigh. 2:00 AM. Underwear. Birds. Rain. Beauty. | |
| When I’m 12 years old, I find out that Measleman, our childhood dog, is named after the doc who gave my father his vasectomy. Tonight, for the first time, I realize that my father lost his dog in the divorce, too. How awful. | |
| I’m 18 years old, and I’m having sex with J. on the 18th green of a golf course in Walpole. Sprinklers kick on at midnight. SO MUCH WATER. SO MUCH LAUGHTER. Never laughed while naked with a girl so much. | |
| Woman in vet had brand-new puppy. So excited. Wanted to tell her the joy and heartache ahead. Yikes! Same with my kids? | |
| 11/6/15 | Dog humped my leg at Petco. Woman is less than apologetic. I guess rightfully so. Meaningless apologies. |
| 11/7/15 | I prefer to write at McDonald’s because I like racial and socioeconomic diversity as opposed to cashmere and American Express (divorced dad, employee). |
| Sam emails me about life coaching. Friends divorce. Susan as a divorce consultant. | |
| 11/8/15 | Faculty hoops game. Same strategy as Pete Dechecco game. Not much changes. |
| 11/9/15 | Man
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