Digital storytelling and my editor’s resilience

“Most of us carry around a little voice, an editor, that tells us that what we have to say is not entertaining or substantial enough to be heard.”

Lambert, J. (2010). Digital Storytelling Cookbook. Center for Digital Storytelling.

In his “cookbook” for digital storytelling (cited above), the writer and director Joe Lambert describes three possible reasons for mental blocks when we have to tell a story: the superabundance of information (overloading our memory bank), the intense exposure to mass media messages (affecting our critical intelligence) and what he calls “the editor”.

In his words, the editor is a “composite figure of everyone in our lives who has diminished our sense of creative ability, from family members, to teachers, to employers, to society as a whole.” I would call it self-censorship — and how severely the censor hovered my mind in the last few days!

As part of the Digital Authorship #EDC534 course, led by Renee Hobbs, I had to tell a story rooted in my personal life experience, offering insight to the audience on the complicated business of being human. As if that was not scaring enough, two additional words made things even more challenging: FREE CHOICE. I could tell whatever story I wished, but the censor living inside my brain couldn’t stop repeating “You have nothing interesting to tell”.

I considered several topics — from the most personal ones (my first pregnancy) to the most anonymous possible (how to be a journalist) — and always came to the same conclusion: there is nothing interesting, inspiring or useful about these stories. Was I sabotaging myself? Maybe. But maybe it was true that the stories were not valuable. I was stuck in this loop for several days and must say: I’m still uncomfortable with my choice.

I decided to tell my eventual audience about my experience in quarantine. My own cookbook. (But instead of giving tips on how to be a storyteller I share my recipe for resilience.) Here it is. Please take a look and be kind because my “editor” is very sensitive!