Thoughts on writing and websites

Researching work distractions, Part 2, I watched my seventh consecutive YouTube video, dashed to the kitchen and scribbled:

“Dinner will be late. Still too much work to do!”

There. I’d written something for the day. To justify, I decided those videos are not distractions but storytelling insight.

Many corporations attempt the close connection of this “view from the couch” with consumer storytelling. Whenever speaking to college classes about writing profiles, I encourage students to snuggle readers closer to their subjects by including conversational asides that seal universal ties: “No, it had to be more than five years ago, Vera, because we still had Puff.”

A friend emailed a YouTube link of decade-old Seattle square dancing that includes “our old friend Lee Stripling,” my late dad. Once in YouTube, my mind drifted to my other 2009 loss, my dog. That took me to “Intelligent Border Collie Puppy” with 206,271 other viewers, all probably also ignoring deadlines.

In Texshan74’s popular upload, Star, 3½ months, picks out different toys by name to the command “brang-it!” She shuts herself into her own crate for “nigh, nigh” and fetches a newspaper half her size.

Like all the best dog stories, this one has a beginning, a middle but no end. In other installments, Star shines in her first agility test. She holds a paw over her one eye in mock shame when her ribbons, strung like fish, include no blue. We see Star collecting trash at 7½ months, Star’s failure at herding deer, Star leaping on and off her owner’s back to catch a Frisbee at age 1.

No Hollywood script. No high budget. But enough intimacy that soon I envy not just Texshan74’s two-way devotion to this pup but also her brick-red tile, clean house, snaking driveway and off-porch wildlife.

Ties that bind. Evidence grows that we’re hurtling through a creative period rich with storytelling. If Star also celebrates her second and third birthdays on YouTube: I say, “brang-it!”

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