Motivational Stories (1)

Whether I listen to a motivational speaker on TV or in person I know they will have one simple focused message:  “You can improve your life by….”
Each of them has a different recipe for helping you improve your life. It might be by diet, exercise, quitting smoking, setting goals or increasing your self esteem. One [...]

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Story Goals – Yours, Mine and Ours

As a Toastmaster my stories usually need to fit the purpose of illustrating my speech. Occasionally I have the luxury of telling a story, just to tell a story. So I can look at stories in two ways.
The first is as an illustration to support the purpose of my speech. I’ll have gone through the [...]

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The Water Dog

Here’s one of my own short stories

Water Dog

“He’s a water dog,” Wendy said proudly.
The ball of soft golden fur proved this by squatting and sprinkling on Wendy’s shoe.
“He’s a golden Labrador,” Wendy added, reaching for paper towels. “In summer he can play with the kids at the lake.”
I couldn’t resist showing off. “Did [...]

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A Villain You Love to Hate

I was going to title this “Have a really good villain” but you don’t want a good villain, you want a bad one. A very bad one. There is no point in having a villain that is not very nice – he/she/it has to be bad.
A villain is any person or thing that stands in [...]

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Inventory

That’s right, inventory.
I know that, as a topic, it doesn’t quite seem to fit but bear with me.
I usually write these posts every second or third day and I try to decide on the topic the day before I write. That way I can mull it over and have it in some sort of shape [...]

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The Gift of Listening

I remember as a child that when all the extended family got together for celebrations such as Christmas I could always rely on one or two of the older people to start telling stories. Then my mother, or perhaps my uncle would, quite politely, intervene  “Grandpa (or Great Uncle John) why don’t you have a [...]

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Take Your Time

When I first started making speeches or telling a stories at Toastmasters meetings it was as if I had to fit at least one word into every second  that was allotted to me.  If I could gabble fast enough to fit two or three words into that second all the better.
It took many meetings and [...]

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