What Kind of Writer am I?

My friend from graduate school Pushpendra Mehta is working on his second book. Push has decided to get my take on some things for inclusion in the book. I feel Push and I show a small glimpse of what is possible in the world because even though we don’t see eye to eye on some topics I respect Push greatly because I know his heart is filled with love and he believes what he says.

It also happens to be his birthday today. Happy Birthday Push!

Push wanted me to write a bio. I don’t know if this is what he had in mind, but here is my journey as a writer.

When I was in elementary school I thought being able to write children’s books would be a great job. I wrote stories about an imaginary rabbit and an imaginary dog that eventually was named Ruf Ruf. I became discouraged when no one could read my handwriting, thus keeping my story inaccessible to everybody else.

When I started to understand how a library worked. I thought, “Man, it’s going to weird to see RAT on the side of my book.”

I sure didn’t show any talent for writing in sixth grade when this A and B student got a C- on his book because I over used the word things.

Sometime in high school I decided I wanted to be a sports journalist. I even wrote a few game reports for my school’s website.

I became discouraged when I talked to a local journalist who told me how hard his job was. Suddenly I let fear take over my decisions and decided I would study business.

Writing was not a big part of my life in college. I took four writing classes over the course of eight semesters and somehow I was completely oblivious to the fact that those writing classes and my higher-level marketing classes made up the majority of my memories in the classroom.
After my undergraduate years I decided marketing as I knew it wasn’t creative enough for me. My next stop was the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School Northwestern University.

I started really learning about writing at Northwestern even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Marketing Communications is more about the ability to convey ideas then anything else. Public Relations really boils down to treating people well. Convey a clear and honest message and be good to people.

My advice is learn wherever you can. Truly grasping communication for the first time happened in a café in France. Understanding the power of silence and white space happened in a copyrighting class.

Suddenly my formal education comes to a close and all I know I want to do with my life is move down to Birmingham and play some wheelchair rugby. I sit on my butt for nine months waiting to figure out what to do. All I pretty much do is read books and watch DVDs. One night I’m reading this book about remarkable people. I’m on this chapter about Mark Twain and it hits me like a lightning bolt. Mark Twain was a premature baby and had a hard time sleeping! I could write a book too!

Just as quickly as I came up with the idea I dismissed it. If I wrote a book who would want to read it?

Long story short Birmingham has been a wonderful journey, but I have fallen on my face so many times. I started trying to write my first book about a month after I moved down here, I was so embarrassed, so scared. For a long time I only told about three of my friends what I was working on while sitting in my apartment. I gave up at some point on my first attempt.

In the time span of a couple of years I tried and failed at doing online research, selling vitamins, a custom shirt idea, search engine optimization and oh yeah six other attempts at writing books. I used to be so embarrassed by my writing and I don’t know why. I figured it was something cool people did; something creative people did, and I never categorized myself as either of those.
Through all those failures I gave myself an education. I made mistakes and I learned. I read a lot. I read the bible, I learned about the law of attraction, Joel Osteen showed me it was okay to give praise the way I wanted to give praise.

I took the skills IMC gave me and learned to see the world in a new way. I have learned so many life lessons from the music of John Mayer and Jason Mraz. Somehow, someway their way of looking at the world rubbed off on me. Lines just pop in my head all day. They come from all genres of music, movies, books and life experience. I can’t write a piece of music, but I can write a piece for the web.

Nine short years ago I was scared to talk to most of my classmates because I was sure they didn’t like me. Now I have the confidence to proclaim to the entire world I think just like a world class rock star and I’m proud to be that bold! As John has taught me have the courage to be “Bold As Love”!

I now know you don’t have to consider yourself to be cool or creative to be an artist, you just have to believe in yourself and find your medium. I fully believe God wants every single one of us to create. Art can be anything. Broaden your definition and keep your mind open.

What kind of writer am I? I’m a human being just going down my path. There are more then seven billion paths out there for the more then seven billion people out there in the world.

Sometimes I stumble and sometimes I fall, but I always get back up eventually. My human siblings please remember to love yourself today and everyday. Growth is the objective, not perfection. Anything is possible!

As always thank you for reading!
Chris