Welcome! My name’s Joel and this blog is my exploration of Story in life, in art, and in roleplaying games. It’s about reclaiming storytelling as our human birthright. It’s about a kind of story you actively experience and create rather than passively receive. It’s a blog about seizing Story by the throat!
This blog exists because “How was work today?” is the closest thing to living, active storytelling in most people’s lives.
This blog exists because I hear “The special effects were awesome!” from the lips of moviegoers far more often than “That story moved me.”
This blog exists because I’ve spent too many hours of roleplaying fiddling with minutia and too few hours aggressively pursuing emotionally invested goals.
This blog exists because art is available to everyone, not just to “professionals.”
This blog exists because human beings breathe Story, because the world is made of Story, if we only have eyes to see.
This blog exists to seize Story by the throat and reclaim it for our modern souls.
Are you with me? Or even just a little curious? Keep reading.
Peace,
Joel
Further exploration of purpose:
Story by the Throat! 
will post more when you blog more…BLOG!
I’m starting small so as to not dominate the conversation. But if nobody pipes up, I’ll roll ahead.
Thoughts on what you’ve read so far? (Up to and including “that’s stupid!”)
Do go on.
Thanks for coming by, Jake! I’ll probably start digging into stuff over the weekend, now I know people are reading. :)
Who the heck are you going to movies with? When I hear people talk about good special effects it’s usually mentioned as a slight compliment, as in that’s the only redeeming feature of a movie.
Stories are important. I like your focus. Lots of life examples and thoughts about story will help this from being yet another rpg blog.
Hi, Matthew. That’s a generality, of course. I have several close friends and relatives who I commune with on Movies for their story value. But I also hear a lot of the other kind of response. It’s often an awkward moment when I find that someone else loves something I love and we both rush to expound on it–and almost simultaneously blurt out: “Frodo and Sam!” vs. “Balrog! Cave Troll!” It always makes me sigh inwardly and conclude that we really don’t love the same thing at all.
And yes, my particular focus (at once narrower AND broader than “RPGs”) will set these conversations apart. And believe me, I DO want conversations! :)
I did a first skim-read, and thought that there was a dialog of this form:
#1: How was work today?
#2: The special effects were awesome!
I do think I may adopt that as my default response to people asking me how my day is going.
That is so cool. :)
Cool, Joel. This is, I think, the conversation I’ve been looking to have about gaming and stories in general.
Although, I’m approaching with timid steps, because I’ve had my internet heart broken before by wayward promises of now-defunct blogs and now-free-for-all forums.
But it sounds like you’ve found something that I want to share in. Cool.
Great, Joe, glad to have you! It’s good to see that the blog’s gaiing traction; that’s always the tricky paradox of these endeavors: if you don’t write no one reads; if no one reads why write?
Looks like we’re overcoming that here. Awesome!
Hey Joel,
I just wanted to comment and say I’m going to be following your Blog. It looks interesting, and I’m definitely in favor of passionately engaging in gaming.
Cool, thanks for dropping by! Hope to hear more from you. Are you a Jacob that I know, or just passing through?