On Wednesday morning, I was zeroed in on work when Amelia came into my office with an assignment. They had been told to write a story, and then read it aloud to someone else in the house. So Amelia sat down and gave me a personal reading of her story.
She did a really good job, and as she noted to me, she made sure to include a lot of detail. Indeed, they had been told to write one page, and she wrote three. So in where it comes to economy of word count, Amelia clearly takes after her old man.
As a writer myself, I love watching Amelia stretch her storytelling muscles. She definitely has her own point of view, and while in this case she was telling a story from her life, she had her own way of doing it and her own point of view. It made me think of my favorite Belle and Sebastian song, also called “Storytelling.”
Looks at all the people and take note of the setting behind
Listen, watch, and wait
A plot begins to take shape
And then characters will come to you
Relating events as they choose to
But all their words and actions come entirely from you
Beyond that, the day was fairly uneventful. For whatever reason I have been extra tired this week, and felt particularly like I had been shot with an elephant tranquilizer. But a nice pick me up was this delicious banana bread that Erin made with the kids the day before.
Delicious, and also gluten and dairy free, from a recipe from Danielle Walker, one of our favorite cookbook authors. As a longtime cook and connoisseur of recipes and cookbooks, I can squarely consider myself a fan. Her books have transformed my thinking about what is possible when navigating dietary considerations.
Well, I made a little Instagram post about the banana bread yesterday and tagged Danielle Walker, and later that evening was surprised and thrilled to find I got a like from her!
Danielle Walker now joins Alyssa Milano and Josh Gad in the pantheon of celebrities that have acknowledged my existence on social media in the past year. Not a bad group.
