How to write a bio that isn’t boring and hateful but has YOU YOU YOU written all over it.
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So how terribly boring are some people’s professional client-seeking bios?
I’m having a day where I really hate bios, especially writer’s bios that show up in lit journals like the one I edit. (Next issue creative bios only.)
So today I was updating my Web site and felt a stick-up-my-arse at the bio page. Enough with this trying-to-impress bio b.s. Today was the day to try something totally new.
So here it is. I don’t know if it works but I’m trying it on!
And keep in mind, this is a bio written for a particular kind of audience and client base; people who might appreciate this style and work really well with me, and vv. Call it my siren song. And let it be known, I’m jumping off the very wise principle Havi Brooks writes about at The Fluent Self. She advocates finding your “Right People,” and letting them find you. This means you get to create conversations just for the group you want to hang with and help and work with and get along with, and you and everyone, world included, is happier.
Ok, read on. Right from Web page.
A bio, three ways. (Part 1 only here) 1. A story I grew up as a happy bright active kid in the states and in Rome. I played well with others and spent a lot of time in my bedroom daydreaming and performing "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" into my mirror. I had a two tone crimson shag carpet. I did every sport I could get my hands on and was secretly shy with foreign parents and one younger brother and a giant orange cat named Tom.
I left home and traveled to Europe alone on a one-way ticket (I got a free ticket home, too). Next came the move to a big beautiful noisy art-filled city where I did big-city things like working at a women's magazine and writing and loving and partying and thinking and talking and laughing and screaming and then ...
Heartbreak. Getting fired. Watching some of my dreams fall away like coat buttons after a rough night. Next, I lost the perky confidence of my youthy-youth and started to mope around thinking, "Hey! I'm just a sham everyone's smarter." Until the wiser and slightly jaded part of me realized we were all faking it, and the people feigning confidence best were winning, and so I figured, "Hell, I'm smart enough too." And then ...
I left the big city and returned to my birth city and as I moved down my path I was stuck, suddenly there was this OUCH OOH, what's prickling me and I was lost in Dante's thick woods but I was just 29-years-old. And I came out of it when I let myself do what I really, really, really wanted to do. Then I went into the woods again at 33 and out again and in there at 40 again and so on, meaning: I have been on my path and off my path. I have had my ass kicked and heart broken and lost people I love. I have found myself, lost myself, deconstructed myself, build myself back up, and spent a few years getting lost riding the Waaaambulance.
Eventually I learned that life is a multi-colored series of transitions and thresholds. Like, a non-stop set of waves. Life is not, as I once thought, about finding your high note and holding it for ever. You are never "squared away" like my mother wishes, nor do you ever "have it all together" and "being on top of your game" is just bullshit. OK, so we hold these amazing moments for five minutes and then WHACK, it starts over. But in a good way, really!
Then I arrived at a place where I looked at my own little story and took responsibility for all of it ALL OF IT and boy. [Tears] I learned something. The imagination has a lot of good creative power that you can hone and flex and it will get you through anything. You have to make friends with it first, and learn to use it, like a powerful magic sword.
So many times I arrived at the chapter that's titled: How the hell did I get myself into these dark prickly woods? But I have also arrived at the chapter with the open sunny meadow and wildflowers, with my eyes blinking and my jaw dropped, wondering: How the hell did I ever get to this beautiful and cool and mysterious god-forsaken place? Wow ... cool... shivers, thank you.
And the moral, or gift of this story, has left me with a big-heart desire to help other people find their way through and out of the woods. I want to help people live a life that is fulfilling and creative and happifying. Filled with imagination.
Keats said it so well: "I am certain of nothing but the Holiness of the Heart's affections and the Truth of the Imagination." I agree. With one addition: Imagination + Action = Freedom. I am a do-er. Amen. The end.
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So, what kind of bio would you write if you really dug deep and sung your siren song to your Right People?
Part 1 of 3, bio, from: http://www.tatyanamishel.com/bio.htm