Here I am, someone who wants to be a storyteller - struggling to find a story. Let the ideas flow from me... let the words drip from my mind.

What follows is the work I did on another exercise from Julia Cameron's book "The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life"...

This tool encourages you to lighten up and stop writing so seriously that it is frightening. Pretend that you are sitting under a large tree with your back resting on its trunk. On the other side of the tree, a Storyteller sits also resting against the tree trunk. Take a sheet of paper and number from one to five. Tell the Storyteller five things you'd like to hear stories about.

Five things I'd like to hear stories about...

1. A student union in turmoil (aren't they always in turmoil?).

2. Someone who can get over the blocks that seem to come up when you are trying to write and end up staring at a blank page or screen.

3. The creation of a weapon, such as a gun or a knife, where you see the people making it, in a factory where hundreds or thousands of others are made daily. Watch its journey from the plant to the store to the hands of someone who uses it.

4. Someone who runs a public park.

5. A story where environmentalists become extremists.

Ottawa is going to the Stanley Cup Finals!