Defying the Odds: Kyle Colber on Overcoming Dyslexia and Embracing Creativity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Kyle Cobra, an author who struggled with dyslexia, and he has proved that sometimes your greatest limitations can be your greatest strength. Along with struggling with dyslexia, Kyle also struggled with self-doubt and imposter syndrome. But he pushed through, he beat the odds, he has written multiple books, and he is here today to let all of you know that if you have a creative dream, keep pushing forward, even if the odds are against you. So, Kyle, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Well, my name's Kyle Kolber. I am from Connecticut. I'm currently a uh student at Hofstream University. I'm going as a I'm going into my junior year. Yeah, my junior year for uh uh English set of English and creative writing. Uh I published and written my first book. I I started writing my first book when I was 15. I published it when I was 16. And from then I published three more books until I was about nineteen, and then I went to college and uh things kind of slowed down, but I kept working on projects, kept working on other stuff. Um I love playing football, love EDM music, I love a lot of uh different arts, and uh I'm a big movie buff also. I love movies.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Alright, well, uh what's your favorite movies?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Well, uh so some of my favorite movies. Uh Interstellar is amazing. Love Interstellar. Uh the movie Synchronic has Anthony Mackey in it. Uh he did phenomenal in that. Uh We Are Marshall, another Anthony Mackey movie about the uh 1979 uh Marshall Thundering Heard. Um there's plenty of others I'm missing out. Uh Inception. Can't you can't go wrong with Inception. There's amazing, amazing films. Just love to watch and helps me create more story.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Absolutely. Well, let's talk about your journey with dyslexia. Explain to the listeners who might not be aware what dyslexia is and talk about how it impacted your life growing up.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Alright. So dyslexia is something where uh it uh impairs people who um can't really read that well. So growing up, I we didn't know I had dyslexia until I was about uh my eighth grade, so I was probably 13 or 14 around the time. We didn't know I had dyslexia. Or we did know, but we didn't really we couldn't do anything about it because school districts don't really like helping people out with that kind of thing. So um I couldn't really read all that well growing up. Um I struggled with books. I wanted to read um like The Hobbit, I wanted to read uh bigger, bigger and greater novels, but I just couldn't because the words when I looked at them just kept moving around, kept jiggling, and you have to play a game like i tag. You gotta catch catch the words in order to understand them. But another part about dyslexia though is processing what you're reading is an issue. So you know that feeling when you're like reading a page and then you realize, wait a minute, I wasn't processing that, I gotta reread that page. Well, have that repeat itself over and over and over and over again. That's kind of what dyslexia is. So for me, um, it was always a struggle to read books growing up. Um, I had to stick with audiobooks, I had to find alternate formats because um people aren't very, especially today, people don't really like to accommodate those who have quote unquote special needs. Um it took a lot of fighting to get the accommodations I had, and I need it. Um and I and I do um thank a lot of thank a lot of my current reading ability to my previous teachers. Um I know in eighth grade I got a one-on-one reading teacher. Her name was Miss Mitchell's greatest teacher of all time. She taught me how to read the words and try to understand them. Like, not like read them and understand them, but like read them and process them to a point where it just hits a wall, but I could understand what's going on with with the words being said. Um, she was one of the reasons why I think I've been able to be successful because she taught me those ABCs back in eighth grade, pretty much, because I had to relearn everything because I wasn't learning how to read correctly. And um, without her, I wouldn't be where I'm at. And then about a few years later, I wrote my first book, and I keep writing and keep and now I read all the time. I don't stop reading. It's great. I read too many books. But it takes a lot of self-practice and a lot of self-learning to be where I'm at right now.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Well, that was gonna be my next question. What at what point did you decide to write a book that despite all the challenges that this dyslexia presented to you?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

So this is gonna be probably a very stereotypical answer. Um I started to write my first book. It was during uh 2020, during COVID lockdown. So we were um stuck at home and I was um playing a lot of video games, and that this was a time when I wasn't really fully into reading, but like I did like the idea of writing, so I was like in that in-between zone. So I was uh playing a lot of video games, and I thought to myself, like, I need to do something else. This is not cutting it out for me. So I started writing, and then I developed a full story, and I kept developing that story, kept writing it, kept kept, kept going at it, kept adding more characters, more different subplots, and I was like, wait a minute, this could be something cool. So I wrote a second book, then a third, then a fourth, and it just kept going and kept spiraling, and I just it all started during that COVID, during 2020, where I was locked in my basement just writing. And um, I was fortunate enough to have had that outlet during that time because I know a lot of people had an outlet during the the lockdown, but that's when I really started taking off because I had so much time with myself and I was like, this is what I want to do. Like I knew I didn't want to work a um a nine to five, sit set at the office all day and continue a quote unquote, as I would say, um, like wasting away doing work that I didn't find very appealing. So finding that outlet to be creative was something very important for me, and I was lucky to find it then.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

We'll talk about some of the biggest challenges you face when writing your first book and how you overcame them.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

The biggest challenge for my first book, and this is without saying, is word choice. Um, my very first draft, I remember I I I wrote the first draft of Universe Discovery, it was not very good. I'm going to be honest, it was not very good, but hey, that's part of writing. You gotta keep evolving your stuff. Um, but I used the word then, T-H-E-N, probably a good 400 to 500 times. Keep in mind this is only a 260-something page book, so it was not I was using that word way too much. So I had someone read it and they told me, hey, you gotta cut it down a little bit, and I managed to get it down to like a hundred and something. Word choice was a huge, huge, huge, huge like learning curve for me. Um because then again, because like I told you, I was not reading very, very well or very often growing up, so the only words I knew were just simple words. Um also making my books very accessible was an issue because as someone with dyslexia, I know books aren't very accessible, and I want to be able to give people books that are accessible. If people don't have books that are accessible, then people don't have the ability to read them. And if they don't want to read them, then they're stuck on their phone, doom scrolling, playing video games all day, not really expand explain expanding their mind. So I wanted to be one of the people to start writing more accessible books, and I think I have gotten to that point where I can do that very efficiently. But in the first drafts, it was never it was never never great. Um it takes hundreds of hours to craft a a a solid book. Um I'm not saying my book's amazing. I'm just saying it's solid, and I really, really am proud of what I've been able to accomplish with what I have or or ha yeah, with what I have during that time.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Absolutely, and congratulations on that. Thank you, thank you. As you know, many creators creators struggle with imposter syndrome, so talk about you know, your struggles with imposter syndrome, you know, w when did you start uh struggling with it and how you overcame it?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So I started gathering this sort of imposter syndrome right around the time I released my fourth book, A Universe at War. Um I knew I had like two or three more books to write in this series, which aren't out yet, but they're being worked on. But during that time I didn't know what I was doing with my life. Like I felt like I wasn't really where I wanted to be, even though I was and still am like very young. There's a point where I want to be someone else and be somewhere else. And then at one point when I was rereading and writing, I was like w I was thinking to myself, this is not this is not it. Like I wasn't feeling the spark I had when I first started writing. And that kind of leaked over to when I started college. When I first entered college, um I already had four books under my belt, and I still felt like this chip on my shoulder that I need to be better, I need to write better than everyone in this auditorium, and I know that has to do with ego, and I struggled with that a little bit also because I didn't understand that where I was, who I was, and where I wanted to be. I didn't really fully grasp what I was during that that timeline. Um I ended up uh to get past imposter syndrome, I ended up taking a break from college. Um so I went to a on a uh during spring break, I went to a trip in um in Disney World, and there was a sign that said, join a Disney College program, which is basically a program where Disney brings you and works at the theme parks for six months. And I was looking at that on my way back, and I was thinking, uh, I do need a break from from school. I need I need a break. So I ended up applying that same night I landed, it was like at eight o'clock at night. I was exhausted, but I applied. I got the interview, got the job, and then I moved down to Florida for six months. And being away from people who are always trying to outdo each other in different like educational, literary, um, different like forms of of um of art, which is like, well, what college is is people everyone's trying to outdo themselves. Being away from them kind of censored me and kind of made me realize that I'm a good writer. I have a lot to work a lot to work on, but I can get where I want to get. And it took me those six months of being around people who I love, literally people who I've called lifelong friends and who I continuously talk to. It made me realize that, hey, I just need to get out of my head. I gotta relax a little. I gotta take it one day at a time. Like I was already thinking 20 years ahead. I was thinking, hey, I want to be the next Stephen King, but then I realized, hey, why don't I just be the first Kyle Colbert? That's what I wanted to be after I left, because I realized to myself that hey, that I need I needed to just take my time. I have plenty of time. I gotta stop overthinking, stop overdoing, and just write and be free. And since then, I've just been free. I've been creating stuff, I've been writing so so much, and I've been getting so many more opportunities now because I've had that that weight lifted off my shoulder. And all it took was going to work for a mouse in Florida and realizing that hey, like, it's gonna be okay. All things uh you just need to break from some things, you just need to break from people sometimes, and that's what I got. I was lucky to get that.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Well, what advice would you give someone who has a learning difference or struggles with per personal challenges that might kind of hinder them or get in the way of them trying to achieve their creative dreams?

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah. Um the only thing I can tell you to do is don't let it define you for the longest time, and I still do sometimes, I let my dyslexia define me as a person. Um because I can be reading a sign and be like, oh, wait, that's not that's not what that sign says. Oops, I'm dyslexic, I'm a little I'm a little stupid. Don't think about yourself like that. We all have something that's quote unquote wrong with us. That dyslexia isn't something that's wrong with me, it's just something I have. Some people have autism, some people have um Asperger's, uh dyslexia, uh blindness. I wear hearing aids. I also wear hearing aids, so I have a little bit of deafness in me. Don't let that define you. You just gotta find what works for you. Like for me, writing it, it there was a code that I had to learn. I had to memorize the keys on the keyboard to know what word I want to say next. I wasn't necessarily processing what I was saying at the time. Now I am, but at the time I wasn't processing what I was saying, but I was still writing books because I was memorizing what my keys were saying on the keyboard. Some people who might have colorblindness, colorblindness might need some other form of um uh routine to get through painting or drawing. People who have memory issues might have different systems to remember certain characters that they're writing or certain characters that that they're acting in. You don't let that define you. You always find a way to break through that that that um that barrier that that unfortunately your life gave you. It takes time and it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works for you. Like at first, for me with with dyslexia, I figured out that hey, having a physical outline of what I want to write helps me a lot. So at first I had all these post-it notes all over my door. I was like a I looked like a crazy guy in my in my in my bedroom. I had like hundreds of post-it notes all over my room, different characters, different everything. And I looked at that and I was like, that's not gonna work for me. So I transferred all of that. Took me three, three, hey, three full days to transfer that all my walls to a computer. And it's just been it's just been amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Now, I'm not saying that that's gonna work for you, but it worked for me, and there's a lot of other different programs out there or different softwares that can help you out.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

What talk to the listeners about your books? You know, kind of give us an overview of what we can expect when we read them and where we can get them.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

So my books are currently well, actually, so four of my books are self-published. The first four um are self-published. They follow a scientist and other characters in the story, uh, in the universe series. The main idea is to show people that even though when the times are tough and everything just gets bad, that it's still possible to be okay. Um, the main character, Pete, he goes through being an innocent scientist to uh going on this uh adventure to colonize a new planet, and then he figures out all these different government problems and all these different uh secret societies and all these and all these things that's going on in the universe, and then the war breaks out and he joins the Marines, and that's where the story kind of cuts off, because right now I'm working on the last three for the series. But the whole idea is to show that people change and that's okay. Like he was innocent, but now he's not so innocent. But now the story is going to be going towards a direction of how can he find the balance between being good while still being broken. That's the whole series. Basically showing people that even with stuff gets hard, there's there's plenty of of good out there that you can still be okay, that you don't have to be amazing, but being okay could be enough.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Absolutely. Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

So I am currently working on the final three books of this universe series. Thankfully, I've been working on this for oof, it's going on six years now. Oof, wow. So I've been working on these for six years. The last three books, um, the fifth book, A Universe United Part One, will be coming out in July. I'm gonna be having part two, hopefully, come out in October, and then part three will be coming out January 2027. I'm hoping. Just editing is this taking my time right now. Um, but the July one is definitely happening. The other two, I'm not too sure, might be pushed back a few months, but they're gonna be out. On top of that, I am working with a publisher right now on a um a small little book about the um Connecticut Melonheads. Uh, if you don't know what the melon heads are, they're these little creatures that live in the woods that haunt people and they they come out and they eat people and everything. And this publisher, I was working with them with a few short stories. Um they're called Strange Moon Press. Uh, they're out of New Hampshire. Great little company, uh woman-owned, the um, the uh, I guess the main editor, she's a very nice woman named BB. Um I wrote a few short short stories for them, and then she reaches out to me and she goes, Hey Kyle, um, do you want to write about the melon heads? And I'm like, sure, why not? Let's do it. So I uh I wrote a full, I think it was like 90 pages about the Melonheads. Uh right now that's going through editing, processing, but that should be coming out hopefully in October. Um that should be fun to read. Uh, I went into the woods to explore the woods to find the melon heads. I didn't find anything, but it was scary. Um but uh yeah, those are some of the upcoming projects I got going on. And then after that, who knows what? I have plenty of other ideas I just want to let out and let loose.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Well, so people can keep up with everything that you're up to, they'll add your contact info.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Uh, you can find me on uh Instagram, uh Kyle and uh Kn Colbert uh I have a website, it's on it's on Wix. Just Google my name, Kyle Kolber. It should come right up, should be like the third thing. There's an email there. Feel free to email me, reach out, say hi. I love chatting with people, I love connecting with other authors because we are all on this together. This whole thing, this whole adventure is just you know, we're all writing, so why not connect with other people? So yeah, if you can find me there, um I am on Twitter, I'm not or not Twitter anymore. I'm on X, but I'm not really active on X. Uh again, just look my name up, you'll see my little Twitter profile, X profile at the bottom, and yeah, I'm there.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

We'll close us that with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

So final thoughts. Um, personally, my only final thought would be to say, hey, just just do it. We we live once. We get uh on average, at least. We get 82 winters, 82 summers, 82 springs, 82 falls. And I'm 22 right now, and I've already spent 22 of them living. Just do it. Just go out there, whatever whatever time you think you have, you most likely don't. So go out there and explore and experience life at the fullest. If you want to write that book, write that book. Just just do it. If you want to paint that painting, paint that painting, go on that trip, find the money, go on the trip. We live once, and as far as we know, we live once. And as far as we know, there's nothing else out there except what we have around us. So enjoy every bit of it. Um, I know the world can be full of horrors and and hell, but hey, there's always light and always light in the darkness, and I think if we go out there, if we go out there, talk to other people more, we'll be more connected and hopefully be in a more peaceful place.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, so keep up with everything that Kyle's up to. Just Google Kyle Cobra, check out his books, and keep up with all his uh future projects that's gonna be coming out that he's going to be doing. Kyle has some great ideas, and I'm sure you all enjoy it. Follow up rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, to keep up with all things living the dream, visit www.curveball337.com. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Kyle, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Thank you for having me. Uh, this I I greatly appreciate this, and this was this was fun to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit w dot curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.