Here's the thread on LinkedIn where my sketchnote was mentioned.

I continue to try to get myself “into the room” where conversations are happening, so that I may draw them. Being present and listening, deeply listening, so that I can visually capture what is said is meditative, and fun. It’s a bit like performance, and a bit like facilitation. 

I do this for my own notes, and at work for workshops and other business conversations. I’m scared to do it more in public, outside of the workplace, so I want to do more of that. 

It scares me so I have to do it. 

-Stephanie Lazenby.

Beth LaMontagne runs Long Story Short, a Portsmouth area storytelling event. It’s described as Bare-bones storytelling live on stage. The event will be celebrating its ten year anniversary next year!

Over the years, I’ve seen friends - Charlene, Chris, and Ryan, as well as a lot of strangers tell stories at these events. Each storyteller brings their own stories, based on a theme. This time, the theme was Cold Turkey.

I reached out to Beth to see if she would be interested in having me scribe the event, to make large scale drawings of the stories. We traded emails and set the plan in place.

I scribed two of the stories. The first on was from Paul Marino. Before Paul came on stage and I started drawing, all I knew of Paul’s story was this brief description.

His story is about a major life change that brought him to a new job, new home and a new outlook when suddenly a fire strikes in the forest behind his house which threatens everything.

His story was riveting. Funny. Moving. Here’s what’s I drew from it.

I don’t know what Wisteria looks like, lol.

The second story was told by Austin Sorette. 

"Tonight’s story is based on an essay he has written for book-in-progress called “Grandpa Hockey Puck.” Like the other essays in the collection, Sorette uses humor and self-deprecation to explore life through food. His story is about a spontaneous move to California, a mysterious Thanksgiving dish, and a literal cold turkey sandwich."

Another moving, humorous, and riveting story.

You can listen to these, and all the past stories from Long Story Short in podcast form on NHPR. Note, these two stories aren’t available at the time I write this, but I am sure they’ll be there soon.

Whats next

I’d like to come back to the next Long Story Short event in December and scribe more stories. I’m also going to approach the folks at Creative Mornings, Portsmouth chapter to see if I can scribe a talk there.

I’ll keep an eye out for more opportunities and feel free to email me if you’d want me to come scribe your event!

In terms of the drawings themselves, I think my lettering has improved a lot over this last year. Next, I’m going to focus on over all layout. How things are arranged on the page. I think both of these drawings could have had better layout choices. And I should learn to draw wisteria, perhaps 😄

I've heard other folks use the term season to denote a period of time where they have a specific creative focus. I'm going to adopt that. This season (duration unknown) I'll be focusing on drawing conversations and stories. 

This is all on top of my day job and family commitments. So, I'll need to give myself some grace as things fall off my plate. That's typically hard to do for me. 

I'm particularly interested in drawing conversations as...

We've been telling stories since we've been people.

We hunted and gathered for something like 90,000 years. Then started coming together into communities, which lead to cities, empires, and countries. It was only one hundred years or so ago that we began the industrial revolution. We've had computers for what, only 50-75 years?

All this time, wherever we were, and however we were living, we attempted to use stories and images to share what it is like to be us.

Sitting around a fire. Or in front of a shaman, orator, or actor. Film, TV, Internet. We're drawn to storytelling as one of the things that make us human. Over time, we used stories, and drawn symbols to enhance meaning.

Our rites of passage, faith in something bigger than us, instructions on how to do what we do.

A cave painting from Lascaux. 

Being in the moment and drawing what I am hearing (and sometimes what is left unsaid) is meditative.

I don't really have a rigor around my meditative practices. Something I'd like to focus on of course. But when I'm walking in nature, or drawing what I am hearing it feels selfless, and connected to a life force, a God, the cosmos, Interconnectedness, whatever you choose to call it. 

I don't hear the self-doubt, the distractions, and I am reminded of this quote which I love.

You are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it.

Buddhism teaches us to walk a Noble Eight-fold path towards enlightenment. It consists of:

1. Beneficial view 
2. Beneficial intention 
3. Beneficial speech 
4. Beneficial action
5. Beneficial livelihood
6. Beneficial effort 
7. Beneficial mindfulness
8. Beneficial concentration

I can make an argument that this kind of creative effort is beneficial to me, in all those aspects. But that's another post, or series of posts. If you're interested in this, the book 

Tea and Cake with Demons is very accessible and well written.

The value of visualization

A picture is worth a thousand words

Turns out it might be more. There is all kinds of science to support this age-old saying. 

• Humans process images 60,000 times faster than text
• Visuals can help people improve memory recall
• 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual

People who see what they've said being drawn feel included and represented in the conversation. Now I don't have any hard evidence of this, but 

I know this in my bones ...

So, I'm looking for storytelling events, meetups, unconferences, talks, or any other type of situation where people gather to talk, so that I can draw it and share with the presenters, organizers, and their audience. 

If you know of any kind of event like this in person (between Portland Maine and Boston Massachusetts), or anywhere in the world where I can join you via zoom, let me know.