Who inspired me to write? I’ve read about a dozen articles that say I should write something on this…
I’ve been writing most of my life. I worked on my first stories when I was well… I was living in New Jersey at the time, so I probably was about 6 or 7.
I tried writing Star Trek fiction when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
Back then, there were always books in my house. I had an older sister who read a lot. She liked Agatha Christie, and the somewhat dissapointing “Rabbi” series. So she was into detective fiction, popularly known as a “Whodunnit”.
I had mostly bizarre horror books for kids – I don’t know what my mother was thinking of! And I inherited a large collection of “Dark Shadows” books, and some books by a related TV series, something about Paradise, and a man who had a painting of his dead brother, but his brother was trapped in the painting… I don’t know. I was really young, and I only read one of those. Note for parents… this is probably not good stuff for your kids to read until they’re 30 or so.
Incidentally, the Dark Shadows mansion was not where the TV series was filmed. It was actually the building where the parent-teacher meeting before the first day of school took place when I moved to Newport as a boy. So, here I was, watching a creepy tv show and reading the books in New Jersey, we move to Newport and… two months later i’m standing inside that mansion.
So, all this sets the stage for me writing.
Who inspired me? My dad got me into Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury. I read them when I was younger. I wouldn’t say they inspired me.
I read Tolkien when I was younger. A kids magazine my mother got me a subscription to featured the Riddle game between Bilbo and Gollum, and so I wanted the Hobbit. And then the Lord of the Rings.
I read those a lot. But at some point, I started reading Heinlein. I used to collect Heinlein stories written in the 50’s. Something happened to Heinlein in the 60’s, and he began to change.
So, who influenced me the most? If you’ve been following me since the beginning, you know the answer. Tom Clancy, and to a point, Frederick Forsythe. Really, I wasn’t influenced by reading anyone that made me want to write – it was more that… I’ve always written. I wrote my first stories in 1st Grade, in New Jersey.
movies that influenced me – Three days of the condor… wow, that movie still influences my fiction writing.
most of my interest in movies is military movies. I really would like to see good movies about the Bible, but alas, they haven’t written any. There’s been MANY movies about events in the Bible, but I can’t think of one good, accurate one. There’s been quite a few that I can say really was a movie about characters with the same names – but few movies about the Bible.
What influences me the most is really going to surprise you. it’s when someone does a book or movie on something that SHOULD have been good… and wasn’t.
Your thoughts?
