What I’m working on

I have been musing over several different conversations from the past 10 days, all having to do with the topic of “story.” And I’m going to get my thoughts together on that really soon andpost it here. But for a quick taste, check out this L.A. Times story [spoiler alert in the Times article!] about the antecedents of story and story-structure in the awesome new Pixar movie UP. We saw it this past weekend, and I can’t say how wonderfull it is to watch these storytellers get better with every subsequent movie that comes out. I think my favorites are The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and UP, but how could I leave out Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, and Bug’s Life? A friend mentioned to me this morning that Pixar is not making movies that now appeal to an older audience to the exclusion of the younger set; instead, they are making movies that have such powerful storytelling that they appeal to an extremely broad cross-section of the public: both young and old alike could root for the lead characters in UP or The Incredibles or Finding Nemo.

Then check out what Ira Glass has to say about constructing stories. And try hard to not be intimidated by the implications of what he’s asking:

More later. Gotta go back to work.