Prologue: Day 1

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Hello there! Welcome! I am genuinely so, so excited that you've joined us on this storytelling journey. I know it can be hard to find time in your day to do things like this, but you're proving the exception, aren't you?

First off, why is this called The Society of Time Travelers? Well, as far as we know, the only way to travel in time is forward, one second, then another, so on and so forth. Every decision we make today will impact our tomorrow, just like every yesterday has led up to where and who we are today. But there's a loophole! Kind of. The stories we write today will stick around, and in a way, what you write today is a message to yourself (and others) in the future. Parents, that's an important thing to remember, especially as we consider how difficult it might become to share lessons and communicate in the future. All that said, I don't think we necessarily want to live a life where we're only looking backward, but learning how to be present and paying attention to the world around us is now more important than ever, and I believe it will be a skill that is going to prove invaluable going forward as we all feel the draw of screens and the experiences and messages that are delivered there. But what is the biggest takeaway I hope for you in this course? Spending time together, noticing the world around you, gathering the raw building blocks that the two of you can bring, and what's exciting is that the story you shape together can only be told by you... and working together is going to create something surprising and fun, and I'm going to help you step by step. But first just a little bit of backstory on why I'm doing this. Back in March of 2020, when everything was starting to shut down, my oldest daughter was in Kindergarten and her school year was cut short. So what did that mean? It meant we had a lot of time to spend together, especially because I was working from home. And almost daily I would walk around our neighborhood to try and clear my head and think about what needed to be done... and my daughter asked if she could join me. It was a drizzly, rainy day, so I was surprised she wanted to go out, but I got our raincoats, and off we went out the front door and down the sidewalk. Now, I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but with the drizzle, I was just keeping my head down, one foot in front of the other, looking at my phone and answering work email. About five minutes in, she says, "Look, dad! It's an invisible house!" I look up from my phone, see she's stopped way behind me, and she's pointing across the street. All I see are trees and grass because it's a lot that's between two houses that hasn't had anything built on it. "What do you mean?" I ask, because I'm not sure how someone could spot something invisible. "Look at the mailbox," she said. And I notice the lot isn't entirely empty. There is a mailbox sitting there, like any other house in the neighborhood, and her six-year-old imagination was off to the races. I recognized this was an opportunity to fan the flame of creativity. I am an author after all, although honestly it had been a little while since I had written anything so I was a bit rusty. I asked her who lived there. She said it was a scientist. And we started going back and forth, coming up with ideas, landing on the house being a time traveling house, and that's why it wasn't there at the time. Over the following weeks, we started taking Imagination Walks, where we would pay attention to the things in the neighborhood, like the wind chimes belonging to a neighbor, the funny little one seater flying parachute machine that someone owned and would buzz over everybodys' houses, the little lending library by the pool, and the little wooded trails by the playground near our house. It became an exercise in paying attention to the world around us, and figuring out how we could describe those things in such a way that it would cause a reader to imagine their own version of those things and transport them into our world. As the story took shape, there were parts of it that resontated with her, and parts that resonated with me. If we had both set off on our own to try and tell a story, it wouldn't have been the same, but our shared imaginations built something that we both can go back and read and bring back memories of a time when things were scary and uncertain around the world, but we had something that gave both of us comfort. That has now become a yearly tradition, and I get to explore more what's going on in her life, and weave in things that I think are important to carry forward, with themes like the value of a strong family identity, the power of being kind, and what it looks like to help others. These are all things I hope to remind myself of too, and if together we can tell a story that we both own and focus on the good things, the lessons will sink in a little deeper. In this class, we're going to help you brainstorm ideas, play some fun games, get you out on little adventures into the world, and in the end, you'll have tools that will help you tell stories. Whether or not that winds up turning into a book, or upgrading bedtime stories, or whatever that might look like for you, the time you two are getting to spend together is an investment I've found to be immensely worthwhile, and I believe it will be for you as well. So, join me in the next video and let's start traveling through time, shall we?