Storytelling and me

[alexxkay]

The upcoming Baronial Performance "tourney", and some ongoing discussions in the Storyteller's Guild, have lately had me in a musing mood.

I like storytelling a great deal. Performance in general, really, but I long ago decided I'd rather focus on storytelling, on account of being a perfectionist.

Being married has changed that in ways I had not predicted. I read aloud to kestrell roughly every other night. I love doing this, and even get grumpy if we miss too many nights in a row. But it seems to be largely fulfilling the "performance" part of my psychic diet.

So now I don't spend very much time at all on SCA storytelling. Which used to be a central part of my self-definition. I was a Storyteller first, and everything else second. Now I am kestrell's husband first, a game developer second, and everything SCAdian is having to fit in as a distant third.

I made these choices, and if given them again, I'd make them the same way again. But a part of me misses the way things used to be.

Well, I suppose I could live with giving up the game developer part of my self-definition. It would free up a lot of time. Anyone out there wealthy enough to be a Patron to a storyteller?

Comments

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'd love to be a patron of a story teller, but you'd have to change diapers and do dishes too. ;>

Anyhow, I'd just like to say I *REALLY* enjoyed hearing your stories, and would encourage you to keep with it if you can. Your wife is wonderful but you should share with us too!!!

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

If you really want to pay that much for nanny-and-housework, we should talk :-)

Thanks for the compliments.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

I can't afford to patronize you as a Storyteller...hmm, ambiguous. While most of the possible meanings are in fact true, let me start over.

I can't match what you're paid to be a Game Designer. (I can't even begin to match what kestrell gives you to be kestrell's Husband, but you're not complaining about that identity.) But do you have to identify yourself by what you're paid to do? I mean, I dug ditches one summer during college, but I never identified myself as a ditch-digger: I "was" a college student, even though I wasn't doing any college studying during those same months. (Those quotation marks aren't for irony, they're to emphasize what my use of "was" was.)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I take your point. And indeed, I didn't really self-identify as a "database manager", back when I was doing that. But I have always self-identified as a gamer, so it wasn't much of a leap to identifying as a game-designer. It is important to me to have a self-identity that includes some professional contribution to the world at large, and "game designer" serves well. I would be just as happy to spend that much time and effort in storytelling practice and performance, though.