{"id":3878,"date":"2012-02-23T13:04:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2012-03-06T12:37:48","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T18:37:48","slug":"the-importance-of-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/02\/23\/the-importance-of-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve ever doubted how important a story can be to somebody, watch this (NSFW: some swearing):<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"475\" height=\"352\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BWvFDYNEyME?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"475\" height=\"352\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BWvFDYNEyME?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p><strong>The quick version of the story:<\/strong> A guy&#8217;s friend has terminal cancer and may be dead by June. So the guy jumps online and explains that it would mean so much if his friend could find out how the next book in a series he loves ends. <a title=\"The Reddit thread.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskReddit\/comments\/p7kfg\/my_friend_has_terminal_cancer_and_may_die_by_june\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"The Reddit thread.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskReddit\/comments\/p7kfg\/my_friend_has_terminal_cancer_and_may_die_by_june\/\">Through the magic of Reddit<\/a>, he gets an advance reader copy of the book and&#8230;he also wrangles a call to the ill friend by the author, <a title=\"Wikipedia's Harry Turtledove entry.\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harry_Turtledove\">Harry Turtledove<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Stories Matter<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>My sister was a fan of the Harry Potter books. When she found out that she had cancer, some of her first words were, &#8220;I can&#8217;t die&#8211;I have to find out how the Harry Potter books end.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, she missed the last few books in the series. (It was bittersweet reading those damn things after that!)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure the story of this kid and my sister [sadly] aren&#8217;t uncommon. As a writer, I never take what I do for granted, but seeing this&#8230;I&#8217;ll always put everything I can into every story I tell.<\/p>\n<p>You just never know how important that story might be to somebody&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve ever doubted how important a story can be to somebody, watch this (NSFW: some swearing): The quick version of the story: A guy&#8217;s friend has terminal cancer and may be dead by June. So the guy jumps online and explains that it would mean so much if his friend could find out how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[24,32,30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}