Spring Cleaning: Pictures to Prove It

May 06, 2016 by Scott Todnem

One of the most meaningful collections I hope to keep around is not even mine, in actuality. My parents have amassed an outstanding collection of photographs.

A photograph can bring all of this to the forefront of the memory; stories of the past beg to be shared. Impromptu reminiscence can bring everyone into the room. It's the "I remember when..." and "That was the time..." that garner the most attention. Not every story ends happily ever after, either. But all stories have a moral. Eventually, all stories serve a purpose. Sometimes, the purpose is in the actual storytelling experience.

No smart device can draw a red-blooded kid away from a good family story. At least, not the stories worth telling. And retelling. And retelling...

True? Potentially. Embellished? Absolutely.

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover: The Holocaust Museum

April 03, 2016 by Scott Todnem

What really woke me from my solemn daydream wasn't so much the southern accents, it was a specific comment.

One of the boys was reading the handout identification card he had popped out of his pocket; the museum gives one to all visitors at the onset of the museum tour. It chronicles the life of one person who endured the Holocaust. Some individuals lived through the tragedy, in many cases separated from loved ones in the process, while the majority highlighted in the booklets suffered an untimely death at the hands of Nazi brutality.

This young boy next to me, 16 or 17 at most, blurted out in discovery that the card he was holding was of a persecuted homosexual man.

Method to the Madness: The Giving Tree

December 02, 2015 by Scott Todnem

Atop a man-made hill and without conversation, the three of us grabbed hold of a low-hanging tree branch, and with our combined bodyweight, broke the big limb straight off the trunk of the tree.

It was a thick branch, but we took it down in a split second with an echoing snap.

It started without the need for a plan; we acted without regard for an outcome.

Bite the Bullet: Slaying the Dragon

November 21, 2015 by Scott Todnem

Writing has always been my dragon.

It has been this imaginary entity in the shadows, incubating and feeding in some dark cave deep within, waiting for the right time to rear it's beautifully ugly head and challenge me to an epic duel.

Me: just a man. The dragon: a full-length novel.

It has been so easy to give in to self-doubt. Avoiding confrontation with this beast is the easy road... and one I've been known to take. I've sidestepped the battle through small deflections of writing shorts and blog posts. Never an opus.

What if I fail? I can't possibly write a novel... how would it ever get published anyway?