Makin’ Stuff Up, Real-ly

Chris Brogan asked me to write this story. Really. Chris Brogan.

If you don’t know who he is (and that’s okay, it’s not like he’s Guy Kawasaki, or anything) you can Google him.

Okay, Brogan posted on his blog a book review with accompanying request for stories about story-telling. And since I’ve spent most of my professional life writing stories, I am responding to his request.

Now I don’t write stories in the same way that Theodor Geisel (Dr. Suess) or John Irving wrote stories. Mine are and have been real stories (and not like Sarah Palin’s “Real American Stories” either). No, mine – hence the grammar in the headline – are Real stories about factual things, like safety in the workplace, or motorcycles and ATVs, or the business of hosting an MMA fight at your gym.

Yes, stories. Real-ly. I do my best to take the mundane and make it a story with a beginning, middle and end. Plus interesting, funny, and educational stuff mixed throughout. And I love doing it. In fact, it’s now my business. Like, my own.

I seldom call myself a writer, even though I write often and for money. Nor do I often refer to myself as a story-teller, even though, again …

But tell and write I do. Months ago, I began this blog, and I’ve used it to tell some very personal stories. Factual and personal and opinionated. And it often feels very good to do that, not only to write the story and record it, but to broadcast it, as widely as this little blog can carry a story. Because that’s when a story is best, when it’s healthiest and most productive. Yes, stories are living things, and they need to get out, to socialize and be seen and heard. Good stories and bad stories need this.

Thanks, Chris Brogan, for encouraging the telling and sharing. Pass it on.