The Mindfulness of Hunting for Stories

When I first became interested in producing audio stories a few years ago, one of the biggest challenges I faced was where to find the damn stories. I think this is a common problem for people starting out. Where do I get my ideas?

Jessica Abel, author of the (excellent) Out On The Wire graphic novel, recommends learning to “pay attention to your attention”. That sounds like something you might hear from your meditation app and, in a way, it is. It’s all about training your mind to learn how to focus.

I say this as someone who has done both (hunt for stories and meditate) and, for the most part, done them poorly. But I think there’s great benefit in that simple act of paying attention. Trying to notice where your mind goes. Where it lands once it gets distracted. What it gravitates towards.

There are many ways to do this, and modern technology can really help. You can look at your recent Google search history and see what you’ve been curious about. Check out what’s open right now in your browser tabs. Look at your Screen Time app usage.

I started using Evernote a few months ago, and the program makes it easy to see what kind of topics have interested me lately. All I have to is look at the folders with the most clipped articles and links (in my case: COVID, crypto, Australian history, Japanese culture, population decline). Will I be able to find an audio story to tell out of any of those? Who knows, but at least I have a better idea of where my attention is at the moment.