Chris Colston on how he became an author
Karen Cortes | Managing Editor
Colston poses for his author photo. Part of being an author is self-promotion. Photo courtesy of Chris Colston.
Most people know that Chris Colston is the yearbook adviser and a 9th grade honors teacher for LCHS. What many may not know is that he is an author and has several published sports-related books. He takes pride in them because he worked hard on those books.
Colston started writing when he was 11 years old. “I would write stories about my friends and I in the neighborhood, and our various adventures. I wrote them in longhand and drew pictures to accompany the stories and stapled the pages together. I did it just to make myself laugh,” he said. “And then in junior high school I teamed up with a neighbor to write a teenage mystery book. It was based on the old “Three Investigators” books. We sold them in the cafeteria for whatever money our classmates had on them: A nickel, a dime, fifteen cents, whatever. We printed them on an old-fashioned mimeograph machine. I think we sold about 30 of them.”
He says his goal is just to entertain the reader, and he explained his process before he started writing books. “What I really want to start doing is re-reading what I wrote the day before out loud,” he said. “That will help me find errors and verify the flow of the narrative. That will get me going so I can write the next 500 words.”
Colston said it took him about twenty years to write his first book. “What I really want to start doing is re-reading what I wrote the day before out loud. That will help me find errors and verify the flow of the narrative. That will get me going so I can write the next 500 words.”
As for deadlines, Colston said he sets goals for when he wants something completed. “But if I miss it, I don’t beat myself up about it,” he said. “As long as I do something productive every day, I’m happy.”
Colston has written about five books in his American Sportswriter series, with two published and the other rolling out by June. He has also written a psychological horror/thriller called I Am the Wolfman. It takes place here in Loudoun County, but the book is written for a mature audience. He has also written eight non-fiction books about Virginia Tech football titled “Go Tech Go: The Inside Story Behind Virginia Tech Football.”
Colston shared a word of advice for people who want to become authors. “If you want to be a good writer, you must do two things: Read great writers every day, and write every day. That’s it. It’s that simple. Even if you read for just 15 minutes, do it. And then try to emulate what you read by writing something. Eventually your own voice will emerge.”
