Endless Possibility: Choose Your Own Adventure

March 14, 2017 by Scott Todnem

Choose Your Own Adventure books are aimed at young readers because, into our teen years, we realize that not knowing all potential outcomes can actually make a story more enjoyable. Not to mention the true plot of each Adventure book was only slightly adjusted by the perceived "choices" anyway.

In other words, the novels, movies, and television series we enjoy are most exciting when they are thought-provoking— and maybe even plot twisting— but we don't need to have direct input to be entertained. In fact, sometimes it's the new ideas, offered by other points of view, that compel us to think and to feel beyond our mind's own limitations.

When Push Comes to Shove: Beyond a Shadow of Self-Doubt

December 30, 2016 by Scott Todnem

There was a time when I kept a pen and notebook on my bedside stand. The goal was to record all those midnight thoughts that seem so intensely important… and also to recall dreams and nightmares to relive the brain’s strangest moments.

I had a dream one night that took me into a jolting and enlightening encounter with a ghost. It was so realistic that it jarred me from deep sleep. Upon waking in the dark hours of the middle of that night, I quickly jotted down a couple lines of scratchy, half-complete thoughts. Configured into full sentence form in the morning, they left me with the beginning of what sounded like a future movie script right there in my journal:

You figured out why ghosts exist.

Knock on Wood: Stupid Superstition

November 30, 2016 by Scott Todnem

I've always been superstitious. Not the kind of superstitious where I truly believe horrible things will come my way if I don't perform a certain task, but superstitious in the sense that... well... it's kind of fun.

I mean, that's sort of it, right? It's all just for fun.

I don't think spines will explode if I step on a crack. I don't think years will be ruined if I break a mirror. And I don't really think it was me who made it all happen because of the way I sat and watched a World Series game— but it's fun anyway, right?

Once in a Blue Moon: Cubs Win!

October 28, 2016 by Scott Todnem

Tonight, I attend the first World Series game at Wrigley Field in 71 years.

I'll be sitting next to my father, who has lived his entire life without seeing the Cubs make it to the World Series, and I'll be filled with the memories of grandparents and other family members who lived through the last century but never saw a Series win.

Lovable losers? No more. Next year is here.

X Marks the Spot: Stories Within Stories

September 22, 2016 by Scott Todnem

I'm a collector. I save things as mementos, as reminders of times in my past. But it's the stories that matter. It is in the stories that I lose myself, thinking about what has come and gone, contemplating what might be. I find myself daydreaming, wondering how I can become a better storyteller. I also get lost wondering what the stories will be of me. Friend or foe? Pirate or Patriot?

What will be my legacy?