Storytelling

I've been reading my friends writing and said to him that I think that he's a natural story teller. He assured me that it wasn't always that way. In the beginning, he says, it was painful to write one line, but he had to do it or he'd make himself crazy. He's also read my writing. His feedback has been helpful. My writing flows, the language is where it needs to be. The problem is that it's too close to home. He's right. I can't move the plot forward because I lived it and it's difficult to be objective about it. Even as young as I was when the story happened, I was there, I witnessed it, I lived it. So the new goal is to tell a story the way that I want that is totally mind candy for me. I think this could be a fun project. Also, he suggested that I use my other story for writing practice and maybe it will come together...eventually.