A Digital Story Life

I’m reading about Digital Storytelling for my Multimedia Cognition course. It’s very interesting. It reminds me of the scriptwriting courses that I enrolled in (twice) at Chico State. The first time I signed up for the class, I took it from Fred Thorne and was enthralled by his dramatic approach to everything. He would vigorously pace at the front of class, raise his right arm in an old man’s fist shake, and in a deeply passionate voice bellow, “See it–write it! It’s in your mind’s eye!”


The mind’s eye has often been the key to my own self-growth. A scant 20 years of age, but embittered by the loss of fertility due to uterine fibroids a year before, I was delighted to finally get a chance to use and verbalize my overactive “mind’s eye.” It was in that class–of all the Technical Writing courses I had to endure–that I was given the freedom to be creative. No, that’s not correct. I was allowed to be creative and expressive, yet with a directed purpose.

I crafted Public Service Announcements against smoking and for supporting yearly OB-GYN exams. I crafted advertising for radio and television; I created a product jingle that would go on to win my classroom competition. I completed the semester with a full feature-length film script about a fireman who loses everything except his will to overcome the odds. It was cathartic.

During my second go-round in the course, I had Barbara Meldon–a tough, but admirable woman. I learned the finer art of subtlety and humor from her. One thing I remember in particular is that not all topics can be made humorous. For example, rape, incest, and suicide are never (generally) funny, although Wes Anderson tries and succeeds to some degree (with The Royal Tenenbaums). It’s Russian Roulette for the writer. It may hit, it may miss, but I’m not sure which one of those two choices I’d really want.

What would my digital story be? … it could be anything.

It could be anything …

… even –*gasp*– triathlon related. Now, how cool would that be?