Telling your own story

So, I have discovered a couple of problems in telling my own story. 1.) How do I decide what pieces are important and what are not? It's all seems so relevent, but to keep people's attention it has to get trimmed down lots! 2.) I'm not the only player in my story... I just asked my ex-girlfriend how she felt about being in my movie. Not that I will mention her by name, but she is in many ways the reason that I was able to come to an identity that included my sexual orientation.

I only started to think about these issues as I started to realize the shape of my story. This Blog may turn into a place where I tell my story over and over in an attempt to get some sense of where I am going and in what order I tell my story and to help determine what is important to say. All that being said, I have made some great plans. This Sunday I am sitting down with my roommate to record some more "interview" time. Once I realized what the important parts of my story were, I realized that I hadn't talked about some of them. Accepting that I was gay at 30 is sort of a big deal in my story. I haven't talked about it, only mentioned it. That surprised me. My hope is to get another version of my video cut on Monday, or at least get as far as I can.

I also spent some time cleaning my room, I know this is sort of off topic, but I am reorganizing my furniture so that i can more easily access my walls to storyboard in a bigger way. I think I need to get the whole story out in order to determine what to trim down. This is going to look crazy. But I am getting really excited. I have always felt like there was something important in my story and until now I haven't really know what it was. I am not sure I know right now what it is, but I am sure getting closer.

The up side, I don't have to be the one who makes all the decisions of what to cut. I can just make the movie and let my classmates help me chop it up. Additionally, I have some friends in KC who are willing to help me get the video and photographic stuff I need for visuals. I think having some visual sense of the place that I came from will help frame the story.