Like many adults, I am aware that many of the personal and career decisions I made in my life were influenced by my Dad, my choices influenced, overtly or subconsciously by what I felt would gain me approval and respect from my father. That’s one reason I moved into writing and publishing: My Dad was an excellent, funny writer whose primary outlet was a snarky gossip column in a trade magazine — Type World — for years, and when I had the chance to write my own column in a similar publication, InfoWorld, I knew that one reason I was happy for the assignment was because it was a chance for me to show him, on “his turf”, that I could measure up.
And then there were books. 22 of ’em at this point, with more to come, I’m sure. Heck, I have three books coming out in the next six months, assuming that the publishers keep everything on track. What are they, you ask? The second edition of my best-selling Wicked Cool Shell Scripts, for NoStarch/O’Reilly, the third edition of my buddy Joel Comm’s best-selling Wiley book Twitter Power 2.0, for which he added me as co-author, and the fifth, yes fifth!, edition of Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours from Pearson if I ever turn in the final chapters. Busy, busy.
Still, there’s something deep and profound about “following in the old man’s footsteps”. That’s why my Dad was originally a cab driver in London: because his father was too. And as I’ve written about more than once, one reason I’m a writer is because my Dad ended up a writer too and it was a shared world for us.
And so it’s with great pride that I clicked the “Publish” button on my son’s first contributed article for my busy tech blog AskDaveTaylor. He’s a nascent PC gamer, finding the online world and camaraderie of the complex worlds of Call of Duty and the like quite appealing. As long as he keeps up his grades, I’m totally cool with it too. 🙂
Here’s an image and link to his first review, of the FOME Ovann X2 gamer headphones. Just click to read!
Keep in mind he’s 14. I think he did a splendid job and while I admit that I did a tiny bit of cleanup on the grammar and overall structure of the review, he’s well on his way to becoming a successful writer and reviewer.
And I couldn’t be more proud.
Congrats! I feel like my father in so many ways, from my attitudes to my gestures, and yet I never remotely followed his career path. I’m a writer … he was a salesman. Ironically, my brother went the sales route even though I think I ended up more ‘like’ our father than he did. Genes … upbringing … powerful things.
Godspeed to your budding writer!