The day has now officially started on this thing that is Red Rabbit Rises!
As I have been known to do on other occasions, the snooze button has been hit a couple of times on this potential enterprise. However, the imaginary, metaphorical covers have now been thrown back, the feet have hit the floor, and it is time that Red Rabbit Rises!
[Inverness, where Red Rabbit Rises is starting]
And in this, I’m starting with a reflection.
My incentive for this whole thing revolves around a love of, and fascination for, storytelling. There's a range of facets to this, as with most things.
One facet which is a biggie here is writing. Writing for children too, no less! This isn’t going to be the sum total of the writing, but it is where this Red Rabbit Rises thing is going to start.
People think about children in terms of having a short-lived life. Thus far in the stretch of their lives, this is true in a sense. Yet there’s something about the experience where I do not want to equate the length of it with its significance.
My experience of childhood is something that sticks with me. We’ve all gone through childhood, or are doing it now. All or us with different backgrounds, locations,
and experiences, and yet there’s something connective about it.
Something communal. Something shared. Something that we can all relate to.
This blog will hopefully be a chance to connect some of the pieces of the puzzle as to how this relates to this business that I’m – we’re -hoping to try to create. The facets of exploring storytelling, of which actually writing stories is a big component part, but by no means the only one.
I’ll start with some truths around this whole Red Rabbit Rises thing.
This business is a business, of course - but it is more than that - at least, that is the hope from here and now, starting out at this beginning end of the rainbow.
For a business is transactional. And I do not wish to lie. I do hope to make money out of this. However, in saying that, it is not my only hope. I wish many other things also.
Out of the many things I wish from this, I wish for something that I believe many others wish also. Which is to be connected. To give something to others, for the fair, pure, and (I believe) true fact that giving is something right up there with and most likely surpassing the receiving.
The receiving counts, I do not deny this. The receiving provides many things, and I do hope for a few of these things out of creating this business, it is true. If it can happen - if it is to happen and continue to happen - it will involve a range of aspects. But the giving, and the sharing, are important.
I cannot state this as a fact. You will know this, or believe this, or you won’t. But I do hope in stating this position that you understand this about what we at Red Rabbit Rises want to do here.
I’m hoping that as this blog develops, it serves as the chance to connect the dots of the business that is Red Rabbit Rises. However, the question then turns to what the dots are themselves.
So I come back to the thought, which is simple and complex and one and the same thing all at once.
To find a point of commonality. A point of shared understanding.
And what is shared experience and understanding, if not the old? The consistent. The ways of viewing the world that reach out across time, space, and place.
[Sharing time, space and stories around the fire is ancient and universal]
It is here at this point that I return to storytelling, as one of those beautiful things that we can recognise and understand as universal. Shared. Understood by us as humans, wherever and whenever we may be.
It’s an enjoyable thought too, at that. The thought that someone a thousand or more years ago enjoyed hearing a story, combined with the idea that someone a thousand years from now still might.
Red Rabbit Rises is a business, of course. We’re hoping for money, so it can float itself and live a little longer - that hope that many hold.
However, I am also hoping that it is more than that. I am hoping that it is a contribution that I/ we can make, which is for the positive. Which feeds into my ‘Ratchet Theory,’ which is something I will dwell on another time I’m sure, knowing me as I do!
Mostly though it is my hope that it will bring a little enjoyment to people other than myself. Me as well, naturally, and those working here, but I do hope that you, or someone you know and care for, gets something out of this too.
There are going to be stories. Stories for children. Stories for young adults as well as any age of adults. Also stories for the sake of storytelling, another angle in the whole of the enterprise that is Red Rabbit Rises.
Even stories about storytelling, for those of us that like getting ‘meta’ about it all and going down the rabbit hole a little on such things. I already know th
at there’s a healthy amount of people that this does interest, but wish to explore these themes on the old, connective art of storytelling, and see what there is to be seen.
And this is part of the point. Most of the point, when you boil it down. A point of shared, common experience. A point of shared, common understanding. And of common enjoyment.
Here’s hoping!
Let the day begin.
Comments