THE STORY OF THE STORY

THE STORY OF THE STORY

Once upon a time there was a greasy, spotty youth called Adam Pearson. In 1986 he lived in recluse in Wootton Common on the Isle of Wight. He acquired a dog, for the sake of it and because he enjoyed having a good lie in, he always took his dog on midnight walks. On these walks a story developed in his head. The story grew and grew and in the end Adam could not get to sleep at night for thinking about the plot. It was obvious that the only way of removing the story from his head was to commit it to paper. So, after giving his dog away to a family that was in a better position to care for it, he borrowed a typewriter and spent six month writing his story. When the story was finished he gave the manuscript to his, former teacher, father for feedback. But his father was a clinical alcoholic and he lost the manuscript forever. Adam had heard that everybody has got a novel inside him or her and he assumed that he had written his and lost it. Years passed and Adam continued writing his own personal diary until happiness befell him in 1989 when he met his beloved wife, Debbie.

In the time that Adam and Debbie were forging a marriage a woman in Edinburgh had a notion to write a story about a little boy that was a powerful wizard but didn't know it. This story was written and became known as ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. It was made into a film and then its sequel was made into a film. Having enjoyed the two films greatly and finding himself curious to find out what happened next, Adam purchased ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. The book had a profound effect on Adam and despite hardly ever having read books before, he went on to read all of the Harry Potter books and then a large selection of other books.

Joanne Rowling had brought literature into Adam's life and her inspiration revived the storyteller in him. He thought long and hard about subjects to write about then by chance he found himself browsing one of his old teenage diaries. Perhaps he could write one of his own journals? But no, it was too personal to him and the people that he had written about. Then the idea of writing a fictional diary about a teenager, using his own experiences as an inspiration, came to him. There are no stories about supporters of Southampton Football Club and few stories about residents of the Isle of Wight. Even fewer depict life in Cowes. The main character’s name was born from the name Adam’s mother nearly lumbered him with until she fortunately changed her mind. Brown was the name she was born with. In November 2002 the idea was born. In the weeks leading up to 2003 Adam tried to develop plot lines but in the end he just created his first selection of characters, wrote the first days of the diary and let the characters loose, they seemed to find there own story. With real life events and weather running along with the story, it sometimes helped Adam when he was struggling to find anything to write about on a certain day.

Writing finished in February 2004 and the next seven months were spent reading and editing the story. In November 2004, after Garry Smith had finally read the full story, Adam decided to send it to a publisher for feedback and ideas on how to improve his writing. He chose Apex Publishing Ltd because they specialised in unknown writers and were more than happy to receive the manuscript on a disk in MS Word format. A couple of weeks later Apex replied, offering Adam a contract to publish his book. He was advised to send the manuscript to another publisher, which he did, but after reading some good words online about Apex Publishing, he signed the contract with them. A couple of weeks after that, the other publisher also offered Adam a contract. That contract was not as favourable as the one he had already signed so it all worked out nicely for him.

Having been inspired by this success Adam began writing the continuation of Troy Brown's diary on 1 January 2005, which is being monitored, as ever by his story tester, Garry Smith.