This is the blog for Marlon Manuel. I’ll focus here mostly on how narratives fill the culture around us, though I may stray into other territory. Like Gator football. Or trips to the mountains. Or scoops of chocolate ice cream. Or gadgets on CNET.
Narrative is all around us. In sports. In politics. In entertainment. In business. Telling stories is the easiest way for us to connect. They’re emotional. They’re memorable. Story telling is fun.
Writing? That’s another story. As the late sports writer Red Smith said, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” That makes me a few quarts low. I’ve written professionally for nearly 20 years – most of that time for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (As a former sports writer – I started in the press box covering the University of Florida, first for The Independent Florida Alligator then The Tampa Tribune -I learned an appreciation for the craft of writing. Of course, I never perfected it. As a matter of fact, I started out as an engineering major at Florida. But after spending six semesters to finish three semesters of calculus, I decided I’d be better off engineering stories instead of designing bridges. I’ve been opening my veins ever since.)
I now write at Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR firm. I’m a vice president in Editorial Services, where we receive daily transfusions.
