Weave Your Story

Weaving stories

10 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by travelcorx in Adventures, gratitude, Leaps, writing Tags: ambassadors, artists, assignment, Danielle LaPorte, freelance writer, interview tips, interviews, jouranalist, listen, questions, record, report, stories, weave your story, Word document

As the name of this blog might imply, I’m someone who really enjoys hearing others’  stories. I love to learn how people got where they are today, about their struggles, their passions, what makes them tick.

What comprises your day-to-day existence, what’s your routine, who are the “characters” in the plot of your life, what fuels your fire? To me, this is all fascinating.

Recently I’ve been feeling very grateful with the realization that, as a freelance writer, much of my job is to do just this.

To interview. To ask. To listen. To record.

Then I get to process the information, throw in the background research, sprinkle it with anecdotes, shuffle it all around like a jigsaw puzzle– until I feel (and sincerely hope) that I’ve accurately represented someone’s multi-decade life in one succinct Word document.

It can be a challenge, but I also find this a really cool mission.

Over the past five-plus years, I’ve interviewed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. Via email, over the phone, face-to-face. (Admittedly, some go better than others…) There have been some no-names thrown in there as well as some fairly big-names. It’s always refreshing to remember, though, that in the end–people are just people. Really, we are all very much alike.

With my latest project, I’ve been conducting an especially high number of interviews. To name a few, I’ve chatted with a world-renown artist, a foreign ambassador and a woman whose autobiographical book chronicles the journey of caring for her husband (of 40 years) who became a quadruple amputee after a tragic run-in with a Vietnam landmine. Their stories are interesting, humbling, inspiring.

Today I came upon this article  that gives some really good tips on interviewing. Thought you might enjoy too!

Happy weekend, friends. Hope it’s a great one as your life story continues to unfold.