I tried to post these the other night from Laguna Beach but ran into a problem with my iPad. Here's the post that should have run: More pictures of Laguna Beach from yesterday. Not much in the way of photos today. Spent most of the day in a room of like-minded individuals talking about creativity, community, God and story. More and more people seem to be using the word 'story' to talk about how we define and come to understand our lives. A group of people I ate lunch with had just come back from a conference that asked them to think of the key events in their life as story elements. This week I also begin a writing workshop with Jon Katz that asks us to gather stories of rural life. My memoir students ask why anyone would care about their stories. The artists I met at the artist luncheon last week are using their various art-forms to tell big stories of femininity, spirituality, and our relationship to the earth and to each other. As a writer, few words are richer than story. Sometimes it is good to sit back and listen to the stories we tell and see what we her it doesn't hurt o do so while listening to the ocean as well.