A Brief and Candid History of Robert Pennington
- Robert Pennington
- Jun 17, 2018
- 6 min read
I would like to start with this: as you travel with me on my journey of becoming a freelance writer, you will find that my personality is all over the place. I am the type of person who still has the childlike desire to be EVERYTHING. I have pursued careers in medicine, law enforcement, legal, government, management of all sorts, construction, entrepreneurship ... the list goes on. Think of any random assorted job title, and I have most definitely had the desire, or at least thought, of pursuing it. Seriously, I have even spent time as an organ tuner! (Not to be confused with someone who puts a sports tune on your old ticker. The organ tuning I did was the musical type.)
At some point, however, a boy has to become a man and learn a trade. For that reason I signed a contract with the United States Army and a Communications Specialist. Contracts are good because it means once I sign it, I will have at least a couple years of stability and be forced to stay on track for a single skill type. As it turns out, my unit has this habit of leaving me behind when they deploy, so now I have the time to dive into yet another dream of mine: becoming a professional writer. This dream of mine is not a particularly clear cut or distinct dream. I never imagined myself cooped up in an office making my rent money completely off of writing. With that being said, there has been little in this life that has given me the feeling of accomplishment than submitting a written work. Every writing assignment I have been given feels more like an interesting and complex puzzle for me, which at times may cause me great frustration, late nights, hours of staring at a blank screen, and getting lost inside my own head. But once that assignment has been drafted, redrafted, outlined, edited, edited five more times, and proof read by a third party I find great joy in turning in my "work of art."
I think this idea of writing as art, or some sort of weird puzzle came from the fact that both of my parents were expert and incredible authors. My father earned himself a seat at the table of well known businessmen, both locally and globally in certain areas. He would interact with business leaders, owners, and the thinkers, and convince them that they needed to hire him to take charge of their public relations or marketing projects. Once he earned their business he would take home these huge projects and solicit the help of my mother. My mother, the incredible woman she is, graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Home Economics and somehow became an expert at graphic design, formatting, and writing. I still do not know how that happened, but once I find out I will definitely share that story here.
Between projects, my mother was my personal English tutor...well she was my personal teacher in every subject since I was one of those snobby home schooled kids. English was different though, because the education she gave me in English far surpassed any other subject she taught me. I would be too bold to claim that I have inherited her writing creativity and instinct, but I like to think I received at least a little piece of the pie. Once I reached the high school level of education my mother released me from the nest into the world of public charter school.
I was a cause for concern in high school, and I both admit to that and apologize for it. Somehow my actions and personality gave adults everywhere great fears in many different areas. I think everyone knows a high schooler who seems "lost" or "without direction, but one story in particular sums all of this up fairly well. My father had just passed away, and my mother was left to deal with her loss and the loss that all six of her children were experiencing in the aftermath. Any fears she had concerning the current state of her children became much larger and more creative. One day after school, my mother informs me that she is taking me to a family medicine clinic to have a drug test done. This came as a huge surprise to me because I sincerely had avoided illegal drugs without exception, so what would make my mom think that I was doing drugs?! It gets better. Her drug of concern was not weed, not ADHD medicine, no, she thought I may have gotten into heroin. "What did you do to make your own mother think you were pushing heroin?" you might ask. My father had a large collection of fancy pens, and these pens required fancy refill cartridges. Me, being absolutely broke, used these refills as my primary method of note taking in class. My mother found this shoe box full of pen refills and that led her to believe I may be involved with drugs, specifically heroin.
Fortunately, I have moved past that era of "causing concern," and learned to make better decisions in my presentation. My mother no longer suspects that I am abusing drugs in any way shape or form (it helps that the Army is known for constantly drug testing its soldiers), and I have somewhat stabilized into the role of husbandhood and fatherhood. But let's get back on topic: high school. English was my favorite subject hands down. Was it because of my love for classic literature, or feeling a sense of thrill in painting a literary story on a blank canvas? Let's be serious for a second, I loved English because it was by far the easiest class to B.S. in. I was raised in a household that legalistically used proper English at all times, so I could proof read just through hearing and seeing. I knew what was correct and what could not be correct simply through the tried and true method of "that don't look right", not because I understood the laws of writing. Furthermore, I am a millennial. What does that mean in this instance? There is not a single millennial with a high school diploma who does not also know what Sparknotes is."Your assignment is to read chapters four through seven in A Tale of Two Cities," always meant "no homework tonight." But what about Socratic Seminars? All you have to do is not be the first person to talk. Wait, listen, remember, and repeat what you heard but in different words. That was high school for me, now we move on to college.
College was a different time for me. I had never lived outside of my parent's house, and now all of the sudden I am with a bunch of trust fund kids in a school four hours from home. The best part about this is I loaded up my broken down Jeep and showed up to school with enough money to buy something off the Dollar Menu if I found two quarters on the ground on my way in. The classes were much different than those I took in high school. In college I actually had to put forth an effort. On top of increased difficulty, I was paying through the nose to be there, so I was motivated to succeed. Interestingly enough, my English class fell to the bottom of my list of subjects I enjoyed. I worked extremely hard on my English assignments only to receive below average grades from my professor. I had one of the highest grades in that class, and I was failing. That all changed after my classmates and I spent many late nights working on a particular assignment only to receive failing grades on that one as well. This was getting personal, and raised the already dangerously high levels of stress that we as Freshmen were experiencing. That was the day I threatened my professor with going to the Board of English at the college, which made my professor cry. I passed that class, and so did all but two of my classmates. English was fully restored as my favorite subject once again.
After college I took odd jobs from Director of Marketing and Sales to Customer Service Manager and enjoyed adding those things to my resume. I am sure that I will use this blog to continue to share more information about myself (that is, if you readers are that interested in me). Otherwise I intend to use this site as a launchpad for my career in creative writing, content writing, and blogging. This will be a journey I will share with you in hopes to entertain, inspire, and educate you on the possibilities available to aspiring writers. I am currently working on developing or finding my "niche," so if there is anything you would like me to elaborate on or write about, go to the Contact tab and let me know.
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