Tell me a story. A good way to start is to take a photograph and then talk about it. Look for a way to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
For example:
Once upon a time last summer I was hanging out in Paris. You'd think I'd be out walking the streets. We were in a gallery district about a block off the Seine, and there was a fine bistro just across the street. You can see the green awning through the window. But no, that's me sitting at the computer designing an online course in Graphic Novels.
Actually, that's a great way to take a vacation, I've found. I love getting up early in the morning, wandering down to some bakery or other for a pain au chocolat with a cup of cafe au lait, and then writing for an hour or two. I used to want to be a writer who writes mainstream novels. I turned out to be a writer who creates and teaches courses for people who like to read mainstream novels and who want to be writers themselves. Not a bad life, it turns out. I get paid to write, and so long as I can hook into the web, I can teach from anywhere I want. I didn't get pigeon-holed into a genre that bores me to death, like crime writers or romance writers tend to do. I have to write to students who have to write to me.
It's up to you to keep me from being bored to death!
That afternoon, me and my wife and my son headed over to the Louvre to take in some really fine sculptures and paintings brought in by Napoleon's conquests of the Western World. Nobody got shot, or chased, or stabbed, or anything exciting, so I'm wondering what's the point, except to say that this is a place to start....
SCENE ONE: a bistro in Paris
"OK, I'm here. What's the emergency? Couldn't we just talk after work?"
Your turn. Pick a picture. Tell me its story.
