Jumping into the YouTube pool with "Exploring for Story": New Adventures!
Several years ago, I was scheduled to teach my first Knoxville Writers’ Guild writing workshop. I had been teaching composition at local communities for a while, but what I wanted to do was reach writers who had stories to tell and wanted to find the best ways to write them.
So I created a short video to introduce myself and the workshop I planned to teach. I put it up on YouTube and posted it on different social media sites.
And boom! I had a YouTube channel. I did a few short videos for clients that were listed privately.
I didn’t have any grand plans other than making a few more private client videos. But I had a lot to learn and still do.
As my workload increased, the channel fell fallow – a common occurrence for idea people.
This winter, a longtime friend, Kris Peterson, and I were looking at some YouTube channels and talking about what was out there.
We like to watch movies and then do spontaneous breakdown analysis of symbols, meanings and other hidden messages in the film. We began analyzing and discussing what we saw on YouTube.
She suggested I start making videos for YouTube and the conversation spilled from there. Eventually my channel, under my own name, came into being as "Exploring for Story."
Kris, who has her own channel, Peterson's Art House, has a great story about a distant relative, Capt. Jack Hawk, a WWII veteran who was married to her aunt for a time.
Kris, a digital art and design teacher and extremely talented artist in her own right, agreed to help me with the first couple of videos. So kudos to her for the intro and other work!
She also offered up Capt. Jack for the subject matter.
The core of my YouTube channel, "Exploring for Story," is to help people develop ideas for writing their own stories and how to find source material.
My videos will be a combination of me sharing tips and techniques for getting the most out of your stories as well as having guests who discuss their stories.
If all goes as planned, some of my guests will already have their stories out in the publishing world.
The videos will address both fiction writing and memoirs. Both genres use similar literary devices, or should.
The difference is that one is based on factual information and has to follow that trajectory. I have clients who turn family stories into fiction while others stick to writing memoir. You can choose your own path.
My videos are not perfect, but as I told someone the other day, if I waited for perfection, I would never get them posted or probably even made for that matter.
As with writing our stories, we keep pushing ourselves to make our work better and learn new skills.
I’m diving in!
I plan to purchase lighting and a microphone, both of which will greatly improve the quality of the videos.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey and subscribe to my channel. I’d love to hear ideas for future conversations about writing.
What do you need help with? You can leave it in the comments below. I’m open to ideas!
Won’t you join me on this new adventure? I’d so love to have you along.
Millard is a writing coach and project development editor. If you’d like to see how she can help you, email her at bonny dot millard AT gmail dot com and ask for a complimentary Project Discovery Call to learn more.
