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Big Chief and the Story of Lifeblood
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Big Chief and the Story of Lifeblood
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The speaker introduces themselves as Kinda Faith and welcomes listeners to Cup of Creativity in the Literary Lounge, discussing the importance of writing and why it gets a bad reputation. They mention their gratitude to the Wichita Advanced Learning Library and promote their non-profit publishing company, Faith Publishing, Inc. They explain that they work with various genres and writers of all levels, aiming to support and promote new authors. They also mention their goal of creating scholarships and writing fellowships. The speaker then introduces a mantra for the writing journey and shares a personal story about the significance of storytelling. They highlight the power of stories and the belief that everyone has a story to tell. They discuss the different elements that make up individual stories and the importance of sharing them. The speaker shares their own experience with writing and the challenges they faced in finding their voice. They emphasize the importance of stories and th Now that I have my good cup of joe, I welcome you to Cup of Creativity in the Literary Lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to stop. I'm your host, Kinda Faith, and today I'd like to talk about writing and why writing is important and why writing gets such a bad rap and also why you need to begin your writing journey today. But before I dig into today's topic, I want to give a shout out to the Wichita Advanced Learning Library for providing this amazing setup because I certainly do not have computer screens and great big huge headphones and obnoxious microphones in my living room, so I really want to thank them for that. And I also want to highlight my passion project, Faith Publishing, Inc. We are a non-profit publishing company. We're best known for supporting new authors and their writing journeys. Now we aim to foster the art and the craft of writing, like we are not just going to just throw out and just like print anything. But we also want to promote, oh my gosh, promote, let's try that again, promote new authors by offering them support and by giving them a larger audience for their final books. We take all genres of writing. We work with all levels of writers. Right now our books include poetry, short story collections, novels, anthology, reference books, coloring books, and we're actually starting to tap into the children's books. I'm kind of excited about that. More importantly, we surpass the status quo by cultivating authors, right? We are growing authors. And we also are trying to create scholarships and writing fellowships to support honing these skills. So before I do anything, let me just introduce you to the world of faith. For years, before I begin any class, I have everyone begin with a mantra. And I don't know, why should I change my practice now, right? So a mantra, if you don't know, it's a group of words or phrases or sentences or just things that you said aloud that help you concentrate. It's something that you say over and over and over again. It's kind of like that self-fulfilled prophecy, right? When you say something over and over and over again, or you hear something over and over and over again, you actually begin to believe it. So once you learn this mantra, I want you to say it loud. I want you to say it proud. I want you to just like, I don't know, maybe stand up on a chair, maybe use a kazoo, maybe put your hand over your heart. I don't know. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's a thing. Yes. Do I care that you don't like it? No, but it's fun. And I don't know. It kind of just helps. So here is the mantra. Today I will face fear. Today I will be brave. Today I will struggle. Today I will grow. Today I will get through this. Today I will embrace this experience. Huzzah! And of course, now you have to like shake your hands like in a bunch of, you know, goofy jazz hands. So, all right, friends, let's just settle down just a little bit. I want to tell you a story. I kind of want to start off about why writing is important through a little story, and I'd like to call it Big Chief and the Story of Lifeblood. Now every family, every family, every group, every clan, every tribe has a story, and every person is composed of this ever-changing antidote, of this, it's a tradition of beliefs, of customs, tales about his or her community passed through generations of word of mouth or actions. Now, this can consist of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, these stupid jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, and even traditions. And it includes successes, failures, love, trauma, and all of this is passed down through generations. And I think this is just like your own individual folklore, right? It's littered with artifacts. So mine is littered with wooden spoons, propagated African violence, catfish, crows, ladybugs, turtles, items used in family rituals like my grandma's morning coffee, my grandmother's yellow food coloring that she puts in her homemade egg noodles, or even my mother's ritual of moving furniture. All of this creates my story, our story. There are power in these stories. Now recently, I attended an event for the Wichita African Union, and there, people shared tons of stories of their home countries, of their culture, of their food, of their fashion. I still smile when I met this one woman who described that her clothing, that it has to have bright colors, bright enough to wake the dead. That cracked me up, and I really liked that. So this experience just verifies my belief that every person on the planet has a story to tell. Every person has a story toolbox, a source, right? Every person has this collection of origin stories, maybe a backstory, a teaching story, cautionary stories, stories of heartbreak, or legends, overcoming obstacles, or maybe descriptions of solving problems, or maybe even a fable of transformation. I love stories. I think everyone does, because you know what? Everybody is a poet, and everyone is a storyteller. Like for example, I enjoy a pre-story prologue, you know, to give context, but sometimes I give way too many details, and maybe like a semi-related story, side story, and for extra flavor, I like to sprinkle in just a little inner conflict, and maybe some symbolism, and maybe I can slide in an allegory or two. Now the format or the genre of these stories, they don't matter, but the message remains. The message is to tell a story, right? Because we are poets, and we are storytellers. My first experience with writing was forming my letters on this big chief writing tablet. It's great big, it's red, it has a big picture of an Indian on the front page, and then when you open it up, it has like this lined, you know, the dotted lines where you practice how to form your letters. Now I remember learning on this big chief writing tablet, and I remember it was from St. Joseph's, Missouri, and this is also, sorry my trivia people, this is also the same home as the Pony Express and Cherry Mash Candy. Now as a young girl, I attended school on a Kickapoo tribe reservation. Now believe it or not, I used to imagine that I was big chief, and I believe that he had to actually wear this huge headdress to instill bravery, because it just took so much courage to actually sit down and learn one's letters, instead of just sitting around a campfire and just listening to all the stories and the lessons that one could grasp. So, when I was young, if you can imagine, I didn't want to sit in school. Instead, I wanted to be outside. I wanted to play with Mother Nature's playground, like I wanted to catch fireflies, and ride horses, and go fishing, and play with animals, and I wanted to gaze at the stars while eating a cherry mash candy. Now luckily, I was blessed to have a family who would sit outside with me, and share stories, and teach me how to form my letters. Now as my academics progressed, I did not find my writer's voice. I was so stressed out about following the rules of grammar, and hiding my inabilities, and not making a mistake, I didn't believe I wrote anything that was worthwhile. My personal narrative became filled with impending doom, right? And for years, I just kept all of my writing to myself. I just stowed it away from the public, and I didn't share any of it. I mean, even Big Chief, in his big old headdress, couldn't convince me to open up. So this changed when I had my lowest points, and during a particularly emotional day, a friend of mine gave me this card, with a Maggie Coon quote, maybe you know it, it says, speak your mind, even if your voice shakes. Now after pulling myself up from the proverbial bootstraps, I kind of created some stability for myself, and I began writing nonstop about my experiences, all sorts of forms. I mean, I wrote children's books, I wrote songs, I played guitar, I sang my guts out, I was a total rock star in my car, by the way. My lyrics morphed into more poetic forms, and my stories began to emerge. And I was kind of on the cusp of creating and finding and discovering my own voice. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite poets, wrote, there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you. And I think that this quote kind of relates to finding your own voice, and finding what's important, and celebrating oneself. Like I like to think that Big Chief, he probably understood that, and he would just kind of lay back, gaze at the stars, eat his cherry mash candy, and know that his stories made his people care. It made his people believe, and they made his people feel empowered. So yeah, I kind of feel like that too. So I believe that writing is a lifeblood, because we need stories to survive. Because we're poets, and we're storytellers. Now I share the story listeners, not because I necessarily want to talk about myself, but I want to actually instill inspiration. I want to yell from the rooftops that stories matter, words matter, right? Words matter. We remember everything from our stories. We learn everything about how, when we should not be crossing the street. We learn about, I don't know, safety lessons. We learn about why you should never go into grandma's basement, because like the monster lives in there. Which by the way, I was like 25 before I went to my grandmother's basement. Just saying there. So why does all of these stories, if the stories matter so much, how come writing gets such a bad rap, right? If you don't know, I teach high school English and creative writing, and rhetoric of horror, but that's another story altogether. And I can tell you there are tons, we're talking tons of students and adults who absolutely hate writing. So why is this? I actually kind of have a couple theories. My daughter, who happens to be a senior, she is more than happy to share this with me. Many students tell me that number one, it's boring, right? Well, my response to this is when you are bored, that means your imagination is trying to get your attention, right? I have got the attention span of a gnat. I am never bored. So I kind of, I open, I challenge you to open your creativity, right? Number two, teachers ruin it. Yeah, I'll own that. A lot of times in English, or at least in my experience, we, the teachers, are expected to teach you how to write academically. What does that entail? Super long essays. Students aren't interested in it. And there's not really a lot of time to write anything else. Number three, the topics aren't relatable. So I'll tell you what, right there. Sometimes with academic writing, the process isn't exciting, but the topic should be, right? Be excited about your writing. Be excited that someone's going to read your words, right? And of course, the fourth one is that the craft, like the actual art of writing, isn't really being taught. It's kind of like a wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. And I will tell you, I am guilty of this, right? I am guilty of this, right? We are so worried about complete sentences, how many sentences make up a paragraph. Oh, you can't show your personality. Can't be using that you, we, or I, right? Don't even get me started on MLA or APA citations. Let's see, we have to teach you whacked out verb tense. There's a process of being more complicated than it should. You've got that drafting. You've got pre-writing. You've got revision. Yeah, that never happens in a classroom. You know why? Because we don't have time. That doesn't mean that it's not important. And I'm not making excuses for teachers or myself. I'm just saying this is how, this is how it is, right? And don't even get me started about like incomplete sentences or not ending a sentence with a preposition or the wrong or right way of forming a thesis statement. That's not exciting. This is not sexy. And this is probably why writing gets a bad rap. But guess what? Writing doesn't have to suck. So here are my wise words of wisdom when it comes to writing. Number one, just write. Don't worry about what it looks like, what it sounds like. Just get your thoughts on paper, right? It is a process, right? If it's an essay, follow a format. It's not exciting, right? Introduction, thesis, transition, body, transition, conclusion, the end. It's the part where I'm exciting, right? But be excited when you're writing about something, right? Listen, observe. This is all that's what's happening, right? So the reason why we write is that we want to share our world with somebody else. Because seriously, nobody else is going to know your world unless you share it. Be a collector of words, of phrases, right? Pay attention to the ways that somebody walks or the way somebody talks or maybe the way that wind just happens to blow your hair into your face. Think. I'm not going to tell you how to think. I just want you to think, right? Write down funny stories or maybe what happened, I don't know, at the lunch table. Or maybe a story, a family story that's been passed down through the generations, right? Maybe I don't know what it's like to go through the depression, but I definitely remember a story of my grandfather saying he was so poor, he had to run next to the rabbits and feel their bellies to see if they were fat enough to shoot. What? Right? Write about superstitions, right? All my baseball players, I know. I know that you guys all wear those famous socks or those special kind of shorts, right? Maybe you can write from a different perspective, from a child, right? Have you ever like tried to child safe something? You get on the floor and you walk around, you know, you crawl around and you look at something just from a different viewpoint. That's kind of what I'm asking you to do. So here's my call of action for you. Grab a cup of joe or coffee or whatever, whatever your heart desires and just begin writing, right? Maybe you can email yourself or maybe you can just write a little note on your phone or buy yourself a really fancy writing journal with like the ultimate perfect pen or maybe you can just write something on the back of a napkin. I wish that we all began a writing revolution, right? I want our thoughts, I want our ideas, I want everything to just like flowing and pouring just like a favorite cup of creativity. See what I did there? My name is Kenda. My name is Kenda Faith. Most everybody just calls me Faith. We are in a cup of creativity in a literary lounge. Just remember, writing doesn't have to suck. I look forward to reading your work. Until then, next time.
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