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A Great Honor

Let Your Light ShineIt would appear that my writing and professional status in the area has taken root, finally. Earlier this semester, I got a phone call from the new Director of the CF Foundation for South Florida, Pat Warbritton. She and the events coordinator, Mary Calvert, met me at the campus Subway between classes one day to discuss what I could do for the foundation to help with social media, fundraising, etc. I offered to write some tips for fundraising using social media and entertain the possibility of doing more after graduation, as the Great Strides is just a week after commencement but there is a bike tour tentatively scheduled around Halloween. They offered me a place on the Cycle for Life committee, which I think I will take them up on in June if the offer stands.

I got another call yesterday from them asking if I would write the Patient’s Perspective piece for the next issue of the chapter’s newsletter. I have free reign over the topic and length, so I’m going to kick around some more ideas I have from my course work this semester in Advanced Composition and see if I can develop one into a two-page piece that both educates and informs in my typical style. I’m not sure if it gets printed or will be distributed on the CFF main website or just the chapter’s site, but look for it in June here, because you can be sure there will be a link in the sidebar. /grin

The Purpose Behind CFFatboy.com

I have several purposes for this site, though I’ll admit straight off that it began as an accountability device to keep up with my treatments. I’m putting my life, my health, and the related aspects of my relationship with Beautiful out there for everyone to see. In addition to that, I want to educate, build a community, and entertain. I plan to entertain with my writing, which I’ve honed over the last 5 years of blogging and 3 years of intense English courses, culminating in getting my B.A. in English this coming May. Thank you all so far for the tweets to @cffatboy and e-mails I’ve received noting my writing. I truly do appreciate it.

I wanted to have an open-door policy on my writing today because I’m planning on posting my next CF-related essay that I’m doing for school. I’ve got an incredible professor for my last, and highest-level English course: Advanced Composition. To put it in perspective of my other courses, everyone in college starts with Comp. 1 & 2. That’s where most people end, unless their major requires some literature. For me, as a Professional and Technical Writing major, I continued on to take Modern Short Novel, 3 British Lit courses, 3 American Lit courses, Professional Writing, Technical Writing, Advanced Technical Writing, Expository Writing (non-fiction writing), an instructor-level grammar course, and now my Advanced Composition. Dang, I feel like an expert at this point!

My first essay for the course is getting a few tweaks before I submit it to Newsweek for publication as a “My Turn” essay. Part of the agreement is that it has to not be previously published, which includes personal sites/blogs and that sort of online publishing. Once I submit it, I have to wait up to two months to know if they are interested because they receive over 600 entries per month and only contact you if they are interested. After that, I may publish it elsewhere, probably choosing my local daily paper called tbt*, which has published all of my letters to the editor thus far.

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