Everybody has a story to tell
Celeste Frances Scott is well known for her work as storyteller and emotive writer. The stories encompassing her life are inspiring and heartbreaking. In launching the innovative storytelling website Button Jar Stories Celeste is on a mission; to preserve one memory, one story in each family, as a legacy to future generations.
The night my Father died, I met my Husband.
My Mother died the same hour I gave birth to my Son.
So how do you think you’ll be remembered?
The brutally honest answer is; when a loved one plugs a memory stick into the latest gadget to download your image. YES. We’re all bound to end up stored on a piece of branded plastic.
Hi. I’m Celeste Frances Scott. Writer, Author, Columnist and Creator of the innovative new concept Button Jar Stories where you simply journal one memory at a time guided by my question.
We all have stories that have shaped the person we became and like many, mine reads like a book. Fifteen years a Graphic Designer for a national newspaper; PA to one of Australia’s leading Tourism Visionaries; Consecutive Finalist Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network Awards; long time Columnist for popular Noosa Magazine; Awarded top Female Marriage Celebrant during the decade I was one of the most sought after ceremony Officiants in Queensland; and then just to prove to myself I could, I went out and obtained my Heavy Rig Licence and became a FIFO worker on the Gorgon Project in WA; the most remote and expensive natural resource project ever undertaken in Australia’s history.
Celeste’s father and mother when they were young.
These days the steel cap boots are off. I’m now a busy Freelance Writer, Guest Speaker and Workshop Presenter. My passion is to enlighten many on how to write their own life stories. Stories you simply MUST preserve for your own posterity.
Let me tell you a little more of my story.
My parents were your everyday Mum and Dad, yet they died when their grey nomad adventures were just beginning. Sudden and unexpected. Many of the untold stories in my parent’s life are now gone. As a family, we didn’t journal or preserve them. We always thought we must start that ‘tomorrow’. My children will never know the incredible people their grandparents were as told in my parent’s words. I know with all certainty those historical stories of our family will become forgotten.
My Father was a Printer and Photographer. I grew up with a dark room under our family home. The legacy my Father left, were boxes of precious photos taken over the duration of his life. However, times of taking an actual photograph to hold to heart are gone. The generation of today rarely see a polaroid photo and tomorrow’s generation may not even know what a photograph is. It’s the sad truth. There will be no boxes of treasured photos to leave. There will however be boxes of old phones, microchips and memory cards. For the sake of those precious stories we must go back to basics and use our words to preserve our stories in print on paper.
Family photo of Celeste’s family in younger years.
You may be thinking, ‘But I don’t have any stories worth preserving!’
Let me tell you, you do. How about those stories told sitting on Grandad’s knee. Stories shared around the dinner table. Stories of first loves, lost loves, eternal loves. Stories of new beginnings and endings. Stories in your family of black sheep, skeletons, personalities, legends and heroes. Stories of challenges that have shaped you. Stories of travels and adventures both behind and beyond your garden gate. Your parents love story. The one thousand stories and counting, that made YOU the person you are today.
That memory stick will never tell the young man or woman in your future who share your DNA, anything about who you were, what you were, and how incredible the journey of your life was.
I vow to change that. One memory, one story and one question at a time and it begins with ‘Button Jar Stories’.
Celeste when she was a baby with her grandmother and mother.
‘Button Jar Stories’ is a digital interactive storytelling website. Think of it as your personal PRIVATE diary where every day you log in to your private page and journal memories and events from your life prompted by a specific question opening pathways to those memories. There is no timeframe. No judgement. Once completed, your stories can be edited before printed and bound into a beautiful leather book delivered to your door. It becomes a priceless affordable keepsake of you.
I created Button Jar Stories as a simple way for individuals or families to journal the stories now of that person whose memories you treasure and don’t want forgotten. It’s a private way to express emotions, feelings and events that are not always easy to talk about in person.
‘Button Jar Stories’ is being used by people with early onset dementia as well as those who have faced battles in their life and need a way to express that journey in private and begin to heal. The beauty with ‘Button Jar Stories’ is that the site is loaded with lots of questions that will bring all the important stories and events together. It’s that simple.Journal one memory at a time guided by that question.It’s a lifetime of memories written in your own words. A priceless book of words and photos compared to being saved on someone’s cherry red memory stick.
Let me tell you more. Come visit my website today – not tomorrow – at Button Jar Stories.
Thank you for reading my story. Let me help you tell yours.