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Yearly Archives: 2011

New scary story at StoryCircle.com – just in time for Halloween!

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Posted by Drex Davis on October 12, 2011 – 10:25 pm
Filed under Creativity, StoryCircle.com, Storytelling

Want a free scary bedtime story for your (older) kids this Halloween? I wrote this one called Throwing Voices, for mine a year ago, but once I finished it I realized that it was a little too disturbing so I didn’t share it with them (yet!). It’s based on a recurring fear I had as a child and is even partially true! Probably OK for kids 9 and up …  an excerpt:

For my eighth birthday I ask for it. And I get it.

I tear the blue wrapping paper from the rectangular box, and there, through cellophane window he is looking at me, his eyes open, his mouth just slightly parted, a silly grin on his face.

“It’s the Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist dummy,” says Dad. “The one you wanted.”

I smile at him. Charlie is perfect. I run my hand over him – black tuxedo, white-collared dress shirt, black dress socks, polished black shoes, felty black top-hat, and his trademark eyepiece – the glass monocle fitted over his right eye.

I reach up, behind his head and find the string. I pull it and his mouth opens.

“Nice to meet you,” I mumble, trying not to move my lips. It leaves my lips sounding more like, “Eysh oo eat oo.”

Mom laughs. So does Dad. I practice all that day and even get a little better at making it sound like Charlie, not me, is doing the talking.

I play with him all night. And all week. And all month. I am getting good. I hardly move my mouth when I make the sounds and sometimes it even looks like Charlie is alive. My friends and my parents are impressed.

But then one day I come home from school and his wooden face looks different.

Full story here.

 

Gunnar Capewave Fights the Robot Bulls – new story up at StoryCircle.com

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Posted by Drex Davis on September 23, 2011 – 5:11 pm
Filed under Creativity, StoryCircle.com, Storytelling

I made up this bedtime story for my girls a few months ago.  My 4, 6 and 8 year old all really liked this one. Your kids may like it, too … check it out. Free bedtime story.

Gunnar Capewave Fights the Robot Bulls excerpt:

Before the robots came, Gunnar only fought real bulls. He was a child prodigy, they said. The youngest bullfighter ever to vanquish a bull from the Rodriguez-Garcia stables. He was seven when he did it. They called him the Matador Maravilla.

But then the robots came, from who knows what planet. They exited the space ships and made robots lookalikes of every type of animal they found. And when left, they took all of the robot animals with them. Well, all except one type of animal. The bulls. The bulls were too wild and unruly, and they tore the spaceships apart. So they abandoned them on earth and left it to the humans to try and solve the problem.

A robot bull is like a regular bull. It has red eyes, huge nostrils that blow hot vapor, slabs of rippling muscles piled high, and two razor-sharp horns perched like daggers on the crown of its hulking head.

But robot bulls are also different. When a real life bull chases you, it eventually gets tired and stops to rest. But robot bulls never tire and never rest. They just run, and wreck, and destroy, all day and night.

Recipe for insight – read source materials first, then commentary, then source materials again

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Posted by Drex Davis on August 26, 2011 – 6:01 pm
Filed under Creativity, Music, Storytelling

Last night I watched a very artistic music video directed by Tao Ruspoli and then a philosophical/aesthetic commentary on the video, then watched the video again and it was a really fun experience.  You might enjoy it (links to video and commentary below).  The philosopher who is doing the commentary, Mark Wrathall, taught at BYU when I was there.

When I served an LDS mission in Argentina, the President of my mission was a former scriptural instructor and an avid outdoorsman.  He told us, “When you’re out hiking, camping, hunting and you’re thirsty and find a spring, you don’t want to drink water downstream, where deer and other animals have trod through it and ‘contaminated’ it with their presence.  Rather, you want to follow it upstream toward the source and drink from where it originates, where it’s pure.  That’s how it is with scripture.  Don’t start with commentaries.  Commentaries are downstream.  They can help you understand the source, but use them as supplements, not your primary reading.  They can also influence you too much and prevent you from having your own insights and opinions.”

I’ve found that to be valuable advice for my life.  I always try and start with the “hard” source texts (whether it’s philosophy, business, scripture, etc) and do my best to understand them, underline what I don’t, and then research.  Only after reading the original source texts do I venture into commentary.  Then, I re-read the originals with the additional understanding of the commentary.

I feel like this gives me significant additional insight.

As I watched the video below, I had some impressions the first time I watched.  The commentary then gave me some additional insights.  On re-watching, I had a VERY rewarding interpretive (and aesthetic) experience.

Try it.

The whole experience takes about 45 minutes and I found it very worthwhile!  Uplifting and got me in an artistic frame of mind.  (The artist, Alexander Ebert wrote and recorded the song himself, played all the instruments, and did all the singing.  It’s a pretty great song and the words are very meaningful!)

Video:

 

Ruspoli and Wrathall Commentary:

My Band Released TWO Albums Today

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Posted by Drex Davis on July 20, 2011 – 2:08 am
Filed under Creativity, Music

Today was kind of a cool day for me and I wanted to share it with you.

Over the last 8 years my brother McKane and I have worked on an album – our band name is “Roger Over & Out“. We finally finished the record and we had enough songs that TWO ALBUMS were released today. They’re available at iTunes, Amazon, etc … You can hear clips of the songs (free) at the links below.


Album 2 (b-sides) –  O&O

 

Please check them out.

 

Belinda Bling – new story up at StoryCircle.com

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Posted by Drex Davis on May 26, 2011 – 8:00 am
Filed under Creativity, StoryCircle.com, Storytelling

I made up this bedtime story a few years ago for my two oldest daughters … finally got around to put it up on the web. My 6 and 8 year old really liked this one. Your kids may like it, too … check it out. Free bedtime story.

Belinda Bling and the Magic Seeds. Excerpt:

Belinda climbed up into the flower and screamed. She was face to face with a green grasshopper as tall as she was!

It stared at her with unblinking eyes as big as hubcaps on a car.

“It’s just a bug,” Belinda said to herself. “It can’t hurt me.”

“You’re probably thinking ‘it’s just a bug’,” said the grasshopper in a deep, man’s voice.

Belinda jumped.

“You … you can talk?”

A woman’s voice from behind him spoke, “Of course we can talk.”

Belinda peered around him and a grasshopper the same size as the other, but a lighter green, inched toward her.

 

New story up at StoryCircle.com

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Posted by Drex Davis on May 16, 2011 – 6:00 am
Filed under Creativity, StoryCircle.com, Storytelling

I posted a new story at StoryCircle.com titled Bernadette and the World’s Biggest Jawbreaker.  It’s for kids 5-10 years old and I wrote it for my oldest daughter, who is a voracious reader and loves “facts”.  Here’s the intro:

The moment Bernadette saw it, she knew she had to have it. A jawbreaker the size of a soccer ball that looked just like a globe of the world. Blue oceans and rainbow countries. The kids in her 3rd grade class would flip!

“How much for that one?” she asked the candyman and pointed at it under the shiny glass countertop.

“Oh,” he said, “that one’s $150. It’s a limited edition.”

Her heart sank. She turned away to look at something cheaper, like gobstoppers.

“But,” said the man, “you could always win it.”

“How?”

“By answering a question correctly,” he said as he motioned to a box on the counter-top.

On the front of the box a sign was taped which read …

Click on over and have a read.

 

The Art of Apologizing

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Posted by Drex Davis on April 25, 2011 – 9:00 am
Filed under Business, Happiness, Performance

If there is one behavior that I – and most other people – could improve, it would be an increase in the frequency and sincerity of our apologies.

In any team environment, especially entrepreneurial and start-up environments like the ones I inhabit, there will be friction, differences of opinion, competition, sleep-deprived snark, and just good old-fashioned misunderstandings.

Feelings get hurt, grudges get formed and borne.

When this occurs, the best thing to do is to immediately apologize.  Even if you feel like the other person shares some fault, just apologize.

But an apology must be sincere.  It cannot be an excuse masquerading as contrition.

The best way to apologize is to go to the person privately and ask to speak to them (not email, though if you can’t bring yourself to speak face to face of you are too nervous, email is better than nothing), and say, “I just wanted to apologize to you.  I was wrong to do _(fill in the blank)_ and I’m sorry.  I will try and do better in the future.”

It’s remarkable how well this works to heal the rift.  More often than not, you’ll actually get an apology in return.  People are forgiving and when you go to them, make yourself vulnerable, and acknowledge wrongdoing, it sends a huge message of goodwill.  Most people will feel a tremendous amount of respect for you and actually feel a desire to work harder at the relationship.  They will also be more forgiving of your foibles in the future.

How do I know this?

Because I constantly screw up.

In my line of work, I am trying to build teams of people who work for the common good of all.  When I’m selfish, I undermine that work.  It is a source of sorrow.

Though I keep trying to do better, I learned that apologizing as I go heals rifts, binds me with teammates, and buys me time until I conquer my personal weaknesses.

If we can’t be perfect (and no one can) we can at least try to be perfect apologizers.

A non-violent approach to influence

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Posted by Drex Davis on April 14, 2011 – 9:00 am
Filed under AskForIt.com, Happiness

We founded AskForIt.com with the belief that Asking, rather than demanding, is the best way to enact change.

It is good to change the world without demonizing others or threatening them with deprivation or violence.

To that end, several years ago I wrote up a set of guiding principles for myself that I’d try to live by.  I’ve often come up short, but in striving to abide by these I’ve done better than I otherwise would have.  This is the first time I’ve ever shared them publicly, but please don’t judge me by them as I often fall short of my own expectations.  I hope others might find them useful to helping them lead a more peaceful, non-violent life.

1. No name calling
2. No ad hominem attacks
3. No attacking character or using accusation or blame
4. No condescending
5. No demeaning or embarrassing language
6. Strive to acknowledge and recognize the good in opponents and adversaries
7. Use facts
8. Use reason
9. Appeal to values (esp shared values, esp those values held most dear by recipient)
10. Treat others respectfully not only because they deserve it, but because I am striving to be a respectful person
11. Have hope in others’ ability to change
12. Pose questions (and invite response, open dialogue; encourage conversation)
13. Make the goal what you can control – your expression and invitation, not their response
14. Understand that they may not change, but this is the only way to bring real, lasting influence in a non-violent way
15. Consider publishing correspondence or letters in an open format (online) where they are indexed and archived – if you can’t influence the recipient, you can influence others (sometimes the “recipient” is an entire subscriber base)
16. Don’t fear retaliation – the fear of retaliation suppresses speech
17. Remember that the most powerful force in the world is an idea whose time has come

We hope that Ask For It demonstrates that this approach works.

StoryCircle.com – a dream realized, a bedtime story for every child everywhere

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Posted by Drex Davis on April 7, 2011 – 9:00 am
Filed under Books, StoryCircle.com, Storytelling, Technology

Last month we (Scrapbook.com) put a side-project into beta.  StoryCircle.com is the fulfillment of a dream of mine.  I have five children and their favorite activity is to hear stories.  I make up stories for them and about them and tell them on the drive to school and as I tuck them in for bed at night.  One day, a friend said, “I wish I could have copies of some of your stories to share with other kids.”  That wasn’t the first time I had heard that but had never taken the time to share them.  I thought about emailing some around, but then thought, “I’d love for any person, anywhere, to be able to share my stories with kids if they needed a story.”  I looked around for a story sharing site, but didn’t find anything that worked.  I was really interested in a place anyone could come and share a story.  A database of all the stories that all of us amateur (or professional) storytellers had made up over the years, so that every child in the world *could* have a story everyday.  In fact, I wanted a social network for storytellers and those who love stories.

That was three years ago.

From then on I worked on StoryCircle.com in my spare time.  Each vacation saw me working away in the late night hours to work on the site.  It took a long time – far longer than I had hoped – but finally it was ready to be put into beta.  Many other features will be coming.  But for now, we can share and find stories and make stories and authors as favorites.

I’ve been so busy building the site, that I haven’t yet had a chance to upload some of my stories, but I will soon.  In the meantime, we’ve seeded the site with some of the most popular stories from authors whose works are in the public domain.  Please share your own stories at StoryCircle.com.