A short course to introduce the interested beginning storyteller to the tools necessary to mastering their craft.
Introduction: Once, when I was a little girl we made a trip to Bushnall, Nebraska. My grandfather, Dan Williard, had made chairs for the children in his church to use in their classes. He painted them white, red, yellow, green, and blue. He allowed me to select one I liked and take it back home with me to Kansas. I chose the red one. I had that chair for years. I remember that one summer day I decided I could make a matching chair. It looked so easy. I found scrap wood. I found an old rusty headed hammer about my size and a coffee can filled with an assortment of nails. Most important I found a yardstick and a small hand saw. I worked and worked on my masterpiece. I stepped back and saw it wobble visibly in the light breeze. I wanted to cry! That was where my father found me - puddled on the floor by my wobbly chair crying my 9 year old eyes out. Grumbling a little, but with restraint, he set about looking at my concoction. He explained to me what I had done wrong and how I could have done this or that. He took to his work bench and worked on it a for a time, having me hold this piece or hammer there... Finally, he set it down on the packed dirt floor of the old garage. He did not wobble. He dug around in some paint and pulled down a brush and then handed them to me. Soon a white chair was drying in the sun. It is not enough to have the right tools, I learned as I scrubbed off the paint I had gotten on my hands, legs, face, and arms, you also have to know how to use them.
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