Telling my story

Meet the Author

What does C.R. stand for? Well, that depends on the day. Most of the time it’s an abbreviation of some of the initials in my name, other times it stands for Captain Random! Captain Random is a nickname a coach gave me in high school, and it has stuck with me ever since. Now my family members will say, “Well that was a Captain Random moment.” whenever I start to ramble about unexpected topics.

(In my headcannon, the “captain” is a squad captain, not a ship captain.)

Now, if we’re going to get into my story of how I became a storyteller, we’d better start where most stories do, the beginning. During my younger years, my parents’ jobs made it so that for a few years we spent most of our weekends on the road for hours at a time. In an attempt to keep my sister and I from killing each other in the backseat, my parents played audiobooks. I can’t tell you how many audiobooks we listened to on cassette tapes and CDs, but I can tell you that it helped lay the foundation of my love of a good story.

Did that make me want to be a writer though? Absolutely not. I think a big part of the reason why, was because I wasn’t a great reader and because my penmanship and knowledge of grammar rules is… let’s go with interesting. God bless my high school teachers who had to translate the hieroglyphics I put on the handwritten papers when I was trying to put down the English language.

Speaking of God, let’s talk about him for a second. I plan to write a post about my relationship with religion soon, but until then, let me say this, please don’t judge me or my books by the cover of current Christianity. Make no mistake, I know that Jesus is Lord and I believe that God raised him from the dead. For those who might be turned away by that fact, let me say, I’m not going to try and beat you over the head with what I think of as the religious “herestick.” (Herestick= Heretick+Stick)

God is good, and he loves you. It is from this stance of love that he will allow you to walk away from him, if you choose. Me, I will follow the Lord as my king. In that light, how can I claim a right to stop you from choosing your own way, when he has said “You’re free to go?” I have no right to say you cannot make your own choices. At the same time, while I won’t try to stop you from personal choices, I will follow God’s example. I strive to always be there, if you want to go to God. I will call out into the storm of life, that the only real safety is in the bastion of the Lord’s protection.

The moment I began feeling called to write came after I graduated college, while working in an office. I was sitting at a computer listening to audiobooks, and once again my love of stories serged. A daydreamed character I’d created sometime in my teenage years… returned to me.

He didn’t have a name yet and was only called “The Marauder” in my head. In that office, with a whisper and a nudge, God dared me to dream of the marauder once again. All he dared me to do was to write an outline. If the marauder was a character in a book, what would the book be? I accepted the challenge, as something of a fun game.

I don’t remember what I thought when I wrote the outline, my guess is I wasn’t thinking about much of anything other than the story. It’s easy for me to get lost in a story and ignore everything else in the world around me. That’s why, when I stepped back, the outline finished, and a chapter and a half written, I was surprised to see that I could do this.

I could write a book!

That was how I first got on this path, and that is why I’m going to challenge you as I was challenged. Maybe this isn’t a challenge to write a book, we don’t all dream of stories and that’s okay, but it is a dare to dream.

I still believe in the impossible, I still believe that there is more to see in the world, and I still believe in happy endings! And you know what? I think you might too.

If you aren’t sure, then take 10 minutes, and dare to dream. Let yourself simply go where you’re drawn, and chase it just for those 10 minutes. Then, when you snap out of your dream, whether it be 10 minutes or an hour later, hold onto that dream and decide if it’s worth following.

I don’t know where this dream of mine will take me, but I know there are some things worth chasing, even if you never see it in life. I’ll keep writing stories because this is who I am, and sharing stories is part of that.

I’m going on an adventure, and I want you to come along. So please check out my stories, share in my adventure, and dare to dream!