Just a note from my son Andrew:

Hey Dad

You know me. I love to write. And today I felt like writing something to help ME understand how I became a writer. And as it went, I realized who the lead influence was on my life. You. Everything is in the piece that follows, something I JUST finished and is bound to be full of minor errors. But I want you to see it, when you have time. So here it is.

Thanks for everything. Love ya.

~Andrew

On Writing

By Andrew Adams

There are four main activities in my life: Pretending to pay attention in school, joining my friends for random outings and explorations (or maybe just a fun night in), reading, and writing. I group the first two together and the last two together, for the more you read the better you write.

Of the four, seeing my friends is definitely my favorite activity. Usually. Sometimes it’s a group I wouldn’t mind keeping my distance from.

But writing is right beneath it, and by if I’m not around my friends you can expect me to be somewhere with a pen in my hand or my hands on a keyboard. When I get bored of my life, I make a new one in my stories. When I get angry at someone, as I do quite often, I write their grisly deaths, change their name, and flaunt the work proudly.

I know exactly why I started writing, and I’m proud to share it. The story is simple.

I was five. Dad wasn’t. Dad was much, much older. It was after the divorce, and he was always very liberal and relaxed. When I wanted comfort, I went to Mom’s house. But when I wanted fun, I went to Dad’s. I was at Dad’s a lot.

It was just me and him in the bachelor pad of his, a small townhouse where just the two of us lived. I would grab the mattresses and surf down the steps, I’d play baseball with Dad in the backyard (actually, just outside it-a small road outside the fence is the only thing separating my yard from a long stretch of grass hidden from the highways by large red walls), buy $5 computer games to fiddle with on his laptop, and we’d read comics together. My favorite was always "Sonic the Hedgehog."

And he got me hooked on the old Greek mythology movies. While the Terminator ran through the future, all I could think of was Perseus and Pegasus, or Jason and the Argonauts, or Sinbad, or countless others. We’d rent the same movies over and over so that I could see giant monsters rise from the sea, statues slowly grind to life, to see Medusa freezing men to stone and to see Banshees caught in the nets. We didn’t tell Mom. She wouldn’t understand, and when she doesn’t understand she doesn’t approve. It was our little secret, and I loved it. And when Mom wasn’t looking he’d let me rent fantasy cartoons like "The Hobbit" or "The Last Unicorn," telling me some day that I could read the book The Hobbit was based off of. I later did, but it isn’t important. What is important is that Dad fueled my imagination and showed me world I didn’t know where possible. And though many aren’t, I’ve found that I can now create them.

And every night before I went to sleep in my bunk bed with only one bed, I’d call him in and make him sit next to me by the covers. And I’d ask for a story. He always seemed to have one, though I don’t think he always knew how it would end. Sometimes it was an original he made up as he went along, and sometimes it was a song or poem he’d memorized long ago and felt like butchering that night. Sometimes he’d read horror myths to me from a collection of old stories, my favorite always a story with man who scaled the mountains to defeat a

November 28, 1992 was a good day.

I’m surprised I managed to remember it, but it’s actually incredibly clear. Dad hadn’t moved his bedroom around yet and the bed was still in the middle of the room against one wall. He and I sat on the bed, the sun drifting lazily through the windows. In his hands were a pen and a yellow legal pad. I was five at the time.

I don’t know who had the idea first, but I give him the credit. He asked me to tell him a story. And I did, complete with sound effects and hand motions. He frantically scribbled down my every word verbatim, rushing to keep up. I’d created a new story for Sonic the Hedgehog, and if the characters were original I might have been able to fool somebody into believing it was a published piece that was simply heavily stylistic.

But publishing didn’t cross my mind until ten years later. And in the space between, I wrote for the sake of writing. Because I loved it.

When my dog Ranger died in first grade, I was horrified. After crying myself to sleep, I went to the table and made a book about him. Written and illustrated by Andrew Adams. It was called, simply, "My Dog Deid." My first grade teacher tried to tell me that I was spelling ‘died’ wrong, but I didn’t believe her. It’s wrong throughout the whole book.

That book was what helped my rattled mind get through the death.

And my first grade teacher immediately saw talent. She got me into a writing convention full of aspiring authors. Looking back on it, I was probably the youngest person there. I don’t remember much of it, but there was a lecture by a published author (who’s book is autographed on my bookshelf), a small class where we shared the stories that got us sent to the convention, and a big, crowded room where we got to buy bunches of blank books. I transferred "My Dog Deid" to one of the blank books, and then made more. Most are in a toy chest downstairs, but "My Dog Deid" is still on my bookshelf.

It’s right next to another book by me, published by "Northfield Press." We got to write a story, and then it would be typed and printed on nice paper with big boxes above the print. The young author then got to illustrate his story. My own story, "The Red Shadow," is still a thing I treasure. It’s probably lost among all the stories published by "Northfield Press." Each student was allowed one book per year, but every time I wrote one after "The Red Shadow," it was lost in a meaningless pile of paperwork, and I lost several drafts.

"The Red Shadow" was my warped novelization of the movie "The Shadow," but transferred to the world of animals. The Shadow was no longer a man, but instead a red panda. And his sidekick was a Siamese cat.

None of my stories in the beginning, outside "My Dog Deid," were completely original.

Dad had gotten me hooked on something, and I’m thankfully that he did. None of my stories, in the beginning, were completely original. While the plots were second-grade quality, they were at least original. It was the characters who weren’t. I borrowed from Sonic, Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Mario, a book called Loch, from the radio show/movie "The Shadow," (another movie Mom wouldn’t approve of), and a book who’s title I can’t remember but I recall being about an old dog who had to defend his house from wolves.

After writing "Sonic the Hedgehog" (or, rather, sharing it with Dad) and "Sebastian’s Sisters," I began to write like crazy. I moved on to more epic assignments for my school assignments, like the three-page (front and back!) epic "The Mysterious Box,"the Rudyard Kipling homage, "How the Ocelot Got It’s Spots and Stripes," another three-page epic titled "Halloween Night," and "Ranger and Scotty’s Snow Adventure," a story about a mythical pup and my great dog, Ranger.

Mrs. Blake, my third-grade teacher, gave us the most creative writing assignments of any teacher I’ve ever had. Most of the above assignments were for her, and many more. She always left a comment, though sometimes it was nothing more than: "100%! Excellent!"

"The Mysterious Box" has the longest teacher-comment of them all.

"Andrew, this is a very well written story. It is so creative. You have a real talent for writing! Keep up the good work!" (This is, of course, discounting the note at the end of "Halloween Night." That one reads as follows: "Andrew, This was a wonderful story! Be careful when you start a new paragraph." Wisdom for the ages.)

And when I wasn’t in class... I was writing.

Mom had bought notebooks on sale, and they had Marvin the Martian from Looney Tunes on the front. I liked covers that matched the contents, and so I based all my songs not on him, but on an alien who began to explore earth as a human. More than once, the series of short stories elicited a laugh from Dad.

And then Mom found a series of stamps depicted Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. So I began to use them to make stories with no words, the picture books I’d grown up with. As a child I’d refused to read any book with words unless it was Dr. Seuss, and the stories I’d begun to write brought back memories of my anti-reading days.

But when I wasn’t working on either of those, I had a new project in the works. I always had something new in the works, actually, but I rarely got past the idea, title, and a pretty picture for the cover pages I always drew beforehand.

The story that truly captivated me was a story called "The Rulers." It was about a mysterious island that seems to take travelers into its depths and never show them again. When a helicopter pilot and then a family on a boat ride disappears on the island, a rescue group of about twenty goes to find them. The group needed to be big, because I could think of lots of ways to kill them off. It was surprisingly easy. After all, when they got to the island, they discovered it was filled with dinosaurs that had evaded extinction. And that their tour guides were changelings. I changed the name to "The Unknown Kingdom" soon.

The main characters, and the only three guaranteed to escape the island, were three kids with incredible prowess in the areas of search and rescue. I was in fourth-grade, and my best friends were Matt and Kat (Kat, now Katie, is actually the only friend I have retained from elementary school). The main characters were, believe it or not, Matt, Kat, and Andrew. Over a hundred pages after the start, and with hundreds more to go, I brought the project in to my favorite teacher (and the only elementary school teacher I’ve bother to visit again), Mrs. Adelman. She didn’t manage to read it, and looking black I’m happy not to have made her sit through it. But she read the scene-by-scene summary I had, gawked at the size and death count, and laughed at the fake reviews I’d added from Time magazine, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Though I never finished, the notebook the tattered manuscript lies within is followed by three covers for the sequels to follow. In "The Unknown Kingdom 2" the dinosaurs invaded the city, the third was more fun in the sun on the island, and by the fourth cross-breeding had created hideous dinosaur hybrids. None of these stories were written.

Once again I have Dad to blame, or rather to thank, for my obsession with dinosaurs. While I’d gone through the phase just like every young boy seems to do, I’d almost grown out of it by the time I was five. The magnificent creatures no longer held any mysteries for me, and I’d read everything there was to read about them.

So Dad committed the ultimate sin for me. Good thing Mom didn’t know.

When Jurassic Park was still in theatres and still rated R (MPAA would later reevaluate and drop the rating to PG-13 for the video-release, but the R rating stood strong while it was in theatres), Dad bought me a ticket and brought me in. I was five at the time, and when Dad urged that I see the movie he once again fueled my imagination to soar into new heights. The fascination with dinosaurs picked up again, and in many ways has only faded a little. Jurassic Park still remains as one of my favorite movies, if not the favorite.

The next long work to follow was titled, simply, "Rex." The plot was considerably more believable, but still outlandish. Gold is discovered in a Virginia canyon, and a modern-day gold rush ensues. While ripping apart the walls, however, a secret cave is uncovered. And inside lies a whole community of T-Rexes and velociraptor-like dinosaurs called Dromaeosaurs. They don’t like the disruption, and escape out into the outside world to wreak havoc on the country as they make their way to the climax in downtown Baltimore, a climax that was never written.

In the time between, I wrote another short story at the insistence of my Uncle Bill. It was called "Cyber Attack," and was about a series of metallically-enhanced plants that develop minds of their own. Of course, Matt, Kat, and Andrew are immediately sent to stop them.

My writing continued like that for years, always long-hand on college-ruled looseleaf paper in blue binders.

And then in eighth grade, I discovered Judith Ingber. And she helped me discover the word processor. I began to type my stories straight into the computer, and began to delve into the fantasy worlds Judith loved so much. I began to work on a long, long project called "Elthridge." It was about a city of elves who send out a group of adventurers to retrieve a stolen item that gives them their magic. Because I was so unfamiliar with fantasy, it broke all the boundaries and destroyed the myths others had worked so hard to create. It was well-received by some (Judith) but hated by others. I lost interest in it when I decided to continue it on a vacation, and had to write long-hand again. I didn’t have enough patience to type it back into the computer.

The project died, but I’d learned I could now type my stories. Quicker and more efficient!

Summer came and I began to search for new things to write, until I stumbled across the short stories. My first short story on the computer was all thanks to Katie. I asked for a story suggestion. She gave me one. Create a perfect society where a man becomes a murderer. What does he do? I didn’t follow her rules exactly, but I accepted the challenge happily. Instead I created a terribly world that strived for perfection and killed those who did not meet its standards. It was called Utopia. And then one of its members awoke in a puddle of blood to look down at his feet and discover the prince, dead beneath him. So he ran, and the androids that protected perfection chased him.

That was my first real entrance into the short story. I have Katie to thank, and the story, one I’ve rewritten over and over, called "I’m a Little Teapot," is dedicated to her.

The next short story to come was "Third Door on Your Left," a short excursion into the world of horror. In it, a hotel room begins to drive those who occupy it insane. I liked it, as did many of my readers, but it didn’t keep me in horror.

I explored around for quite a bit afterwards, messing around with the genres, trying to discover one I loved. I stuck with epic fantasy, but never had the patience to finish a project long-enough to be considered "epic."

And then, halfway through my freshman year of high school, I discovered Stephen King. I couldn’t quite tell you what it was about him that I loved so much, but he captivated me at every turn. I began to rent horror movie after horror movie and refused to watch anything else for quite a while.

And then, as my writing skills increased, so did the amount I played with horror, until it became my namesake. All I could do was write horror, horror, horror.

And a year after discovering horror I took one of the projects I was most proud of, a short called "Eye Contact," and sent it in to a small magazine named Cemetery Dance. The guidelines told me to wait 2-4 months for a response. I tried desperately for a week to forget the submission. And just as I did, it was back. Six days after sending it in, it was back in my hands, in a yellow envelope with my name clearly printed on the front in my handwriting. I went inside and set it down on the kitchen table without opening it.

I wasn’t sure what to do. The house was empty, and I didn’t want to be alone for that moment, a moment I knew even then that I’d remember for the rest of my life. The envelope seemed to taunt me, to laugh at me. I wanted to grab it and rip it open, but I also wanted to have someone to share the moment with. And I didn’t. I mused about the possibilities, wondering if I should bring it in to school and get my friends to open it for me.

Before I’d made up my mind, I realized that I’d grabbed the envelope and opened it without even knowing I was doing it. I took a deep breath and pulled out the slip.

Rejection.

But still, I smiled. My first rejection slip, my first professional rejection slip. Richard Chizmar, the story editor at Cemetery Magazine, had just given me an official title. I was a writer, and there was no longer any doubt about it.

That was last month. I plan to resubmit soon.