Road Not Taken is a segment in which people, who have chosen the road less traveled by, share their journey with us. Read the interviews and get inspired! :D
Today, we have Chris Aka Chronic writer with us in 'Road Not Taken'. Thanks for your time Chris.
‘Haha’ Laughter introduces you better
than anything else. You have managed to make many people I know laugh. But
there are still a few serious people who are yet to taste your humour. Can you
introduce yourself for them, in your style?
Prason
Christopher Robin is my name. If you wanna easily remember my name, think of
Winnie the Pooh. I am yet another blogger who aspires to become big in the
writing industry. Humour is my forte.
-When
did Chronicwriter happen? Can you tell us exactly when the thought came up in
your mind?
The word Chronicwriter got attached to me when I
became the interim editor of the college magazine. The name of the magazine was
Rajagiri Chronicles and as I was the editor, I would end all the articles with
the sentence “Chronicles by the Chronicwriter”. I thought that sounded cool. My
friends would tease me saying that I was just trying to sound like TR Rajender.
But before I could even realise, I started branding myself as Chronicwriter and
that has eventually become the mask that I wear now.
-Why
humour? Why not something else?
I would never call myself as a writer. I am a
presenter. I can present thoughts in a concise manner. I would not qualify as a
writer among the literary fraternity because my vocabulary is limited and I
still make lot of grammatical errors.
But one thing that egged me on was that I could go on churning stories
after stories. This was evident from the number of additional sheets that I
would write for exams during my college days even though I had zilch idea of
the subject I was writing. Now let me come to the question. I was doing
stand-up comedy acts for small groups and I decided to write the jokes down as
a journal. I tried my hand in poetry and in other genres. But it did not come
naturally to me. I do own around 50 blog pages where I write on different
genres ranging from technology to poetry to Spirituality to Reviews to History.
-How
humorous are you, as a person?
Not that much. With my close group of friends, I am
a nut case. I also put up a serious face in some gatherings. But I am sure with
the gift of the gab, it is easy to make any moment lighter.
-Has
your humour helped you in making a stiff situation light? Can you share the
story?
There have been many instances. Most of the
incidents happened in the class rooms during my college days and in business
meetings at my work place. In real life situation my humour is more of the
slapstick style and I have succeeded many times in making lecturers and bosses
smile when they try to keep that serious and strict face.
-Has
your playfulness been a disadvantage at work? Like commenting about the boss.
My boss reads my blogs and sometimes when I write
about my colleague, it becomes a topic of discussion in office meetings. They
take a print out and corner me with questions. But; because I have the nutty
boy image, I always get that extra free hand.
-What
was the first post on your blog? Can you share with us the emotions bound with
that post and your experience writing it.
I started writing in the year 2003. It was a yahoo
geocities page. At that time, I did not even know about the word “Blogging”. I
used to tell my friends that I have a website. All that I had was a one page
geocities page where I used to write poems. Later from 2004 onwards, I started
to read many blogs written by many bloggers and I experimented by launching my
own blog in livejournal and blogspot domains. It took me two years to zero down
to Humour. My first post in Chronicwriter was a simple beginning with a mokkai
joke on husbands and wives. I wrote that post in a word document and all the
lines in that post had at least one spelling/ grammar mistake. That’s when I
realised how pathetic I was in English.
-How
far has Chronicwriter gone? Where all is it ranked as the top humour blog?
I keep a close tab on the statistics of my page.
Before the surge of Facebook, Chronicwriter had a huge audience base. It was
ranked among the top few humour blogs in indibloggies and some other blog
rating sites. The blog reached its peak in 2008 and it was doing well till
2010. But I personally feel I haven’t done justice to the growth the blog reached.
I should have accelerated on. But I slowed down.
-Did
you know that your blog would be so successful when you had started?
I never
knew that the blog would become successful. I used to admire many famous
bloggers and I would write to them appreciating their blogs. Very few replied
to my mails. It might be because they had bloated egos or they might have
thought high of themselves. It might also be because that they did not have
time to respond to my mails. That is one attitude I did not want to have when I
started getting mails from people who started appreciating my blog. I see some
authors throwing lot of attitude when I meet them in blogger meet. This turns
me down so much. Is this the answer to the question you asked?
-Why
was your blog named Chronicwriter?
I wanted
to name my blog after my pen name. The reason behind the name is already
answered earlier.
-Can
you tell us more about the Career page in your blog?
Chronicwriter Blog is a Private Unlimited company.
We have an able CRO from Russia. Her name is Ruth Fernando. You can contact her
to know more about the career section of my Blog. To check for Career openings
click here - http://www.chronicwriter.com/p/careers.html
-Can
you share your day to day routine with us? How do you manage time? IT Person,
trainer, stand up comedian, blogger and a good dad.
I was an IT person. So that goes out of the picture.
I don’t do stand-up comedies every day. So that also cannot be taken seriously.
My wife makes a super mom. I am actually the first child for her and I behave
like one too. So the good dad can be replaced with the word “Naughty dad”.
Now coming to the question, I don’t manage time. I
waste time. I am not organised. I wake up late and go to bed very late. I
personally feel that being a jack of many trades is not a good thing at all.
This question has actually made me to take a decision to be more organised.
Of all the things that I do in a day, my personal
Bible meditation time has been one thing that I am doing on a regular basis.
-Your
daughter has a blog and seems to be the youngest blogger in the world. Can you
tell us more about her and her blogs.
Yes, Anya. Her name means “God’s grace in Russian”.
She is a 2 and a half year old baby. She is naughty and a riot. Her blog is http://cuteanya.blogspot.in. Its just a personal record of her day to day
activities written through her eyes. I will hand it over to her when she is old
enough to write.
-Have
you offended someone with your blogposts? What did you have to go through?
Yes. Once I wrote a blog review about a Tamil movie
“Shark”. The fans of that actor in that movie made me to shut down my blog for
a week. I got threats from many circles through phone calls. Many such people
sang poetry in honey form.
-How
much do you earn from your blog? Just for people to know that in case they
think bloggers can’t earn.
I earn through content writing. I have placed banner
ads for a realty firm. I used to have google ads in my page. I believe that a
sincere writer can earn enough money to run a family if they put they write
daily.
-How
many blogposts do you post per day?
As I already said, I have around 50 blog pages. I
make sure that I at least write blog posts for at least 3 blog pages in a day.
It becomes tough to handle so many blogs individually. I have stopped managing
some of the blog pages and they are managing themselves. My humour blog has
around 8 posts in a month
 |
| Please check out the FB pictures of real Chris |
-What
amount of effort do you put in each post? To what extent do you go? Can you
share the experience of making up the toughest post that required a lot of
effort?
In the past, I would just open the blog editor, type
something and hit the post button. Now a days I do lot of research before
posting on a topic. I analyse the top trending news on twitter, facebook and
also spend time on top searched keywords and try to use them in the blog post.
I believe strongly in the power of manual SEO through relevant content. I ping
the blog in many sites and circles and I also make sure that I do not do blog
spamming. Some of my posts have taken more than a week to post. One such post
is about “different types of girls you can find in a college”. I used real life
images and I had to get permission from the girls to use their images in my
post. Many of them said No and some of them agreed. I had to write content
which they screened and approved. When the post was finally published, it
looked simple. But that was a painstaking effort. This is the link to the post
[ http://www.chronicwriter.com/2014/05/643-different-types-of-girls-you-can.html
]
-Whom
do you think should visit your blog?
I blog to put a smile on people’s face. So anyone
who needs a smile can visit my page.
-How
does your wife react to your blogpost? Have you been beaten up for posting
something funny about her?
I write about a character called Renu in my Blog.
Renu is my kindergarten girlfriend. Mine was an arranged marriage. As soon as
the wedding was fixed, my wife started reading my blog and when she started
reading about Renu, she was shocked that she even decided to call off the
wedding. Later my folks convinced her saying that I am a nut case and I write
like that. Even now, I have not told her whether Renu is a real person or a
figment of my imagination.
-Tell
us about your future writing plans.
Publish Books, Nobel Prize, Oscar award for best
story, Pulitzer prize. [Aasai yaaradhaan uttu vachudhu. – This is for the Tamil
audience]
-Aren’t
you trying to write dialogues for movies? If no, why not?
I have given
my scripts to my friends in the film industry. Fingers and Toes crossed.
-If
you are offered a hero role and a comedian role in a feature film, which will
you take up?
Dark
humour hero role.
-Is
Chris willing to act in short films? This questions might help a lot of short
films makers. ;)
(Vendaamnaa solla porein.) Will I say No? I can do
any role. I look very hot in female getups.
-Can
you tell us about your love failures? We hear that you have had many!
You are asking me to tell the content of my
forthcoming book. One Guy; Many Loves; All failures. (Opening nalla irukkum;
pinising padu kevalama irukkum)
-We
see a lot of devotional, serious statuses on your timeline. Are you a very
religious person?
I do spend a lot of time meditating on the Bible. It
helps me in many ways.
-Generally,
we assume that humorous people are not serious about anything. What do you have
to comment about this?
Everything comes in pairs. Humorous people get angry
very easily. Osama Bin Laden and Hitler had great sense of humour. Naanum
rowdydhaan.
-What’s
the tip you want to give to budding bloggers?
Every blogger has the potential to become a
published author. The one thing that would stop them from becoming big is that
thought that makes them think that they can’t do it. Kill that thought.
-Tell
us more about your marketing trainings.
As a
working professional, I head the marketing operations of an NGO. As a
freelancer, I handle training sessions in the area of Management for college
students.
-Can
you tell us a joke?
I have used Axe deo and it works.
-What
was the funniest incident you have ever gone through?
My four years of Engineering. That degree that I
have itself is a joke and a shame for the educational system. If I can ctrl +
alt + del something from my life, it would be those four years.
-In GB LANDs “Road Not Taken” we have a special segment for Confessions. Make a confession. Could be serious or silly.
I used to wet my bed till I was in class 5 ( 10 years).
0 Scribbles:
Post a Comment
Thank You for taking pains, commenting :)