My Father’s Writing Chair

Doesn’t look like much, does it?

But in this chair, my father wrote motion picture scripts, scores of books, radio dramas, filmstrip scripts, magazine articles, and many other writing projects.

He was a pioneer, really, in the production and distribution of Christian films, starting ministries including Gospel Films, Ken Anderson Films, International films, and InterComm.

I, on the other hand, grew up as a reluctant reader. Once I fully understood why this had been, and at the age of 55, I felt directed to begin writing action-adventures and mysteries that I would have enjoyed as a child. My focus was on reluctant reader boys, but I knew, from my own film production and video background, that a good story is a good story. It’ll be enjoyed by everyone, and that’s what I’ve seen with my books.

We lost him, at the age of 88, three years ago last month.

So what’s the significance of his old chair?

I hadn’t thought much about it for a while until I spent endless hours, sitting in it from this past Tuesday night, through Sunday night. That’s because a publisher has shown interest in one of my unpublished manuscripts. The problems were that my story took place in South Carolina and a background character was Blackbeard the pirate.

Why is that a problem you ask.

This publisher wanted the story set in Louisiana, and that meant I had to find a new pirate. The most famous of those, in the New Orleans area, was Jean Lafitte. Thus the need for all those hours, sitting in my father’s old writing chair, in order to complete the revision.

It was as I neared completion of the project, on Sunday night, that I was struck, in a powerful way, with thoughts of my father’s creativity. I wondered how he would have handled a project such as this. And I was reassured that the task would have been completed.

Like I said, the chair isn’t much to look at. It took a few screws to repair the broken back. Vinyl on the corners of the armrests has come apart. I often catch my sweaters on it in the winter. The chair pad cover has worn thin, partially revealing a sponge rubber pad, and I wonder how long the base will hold up, since it lists to one side now.

But one thing is for sure, I have no plans to retire that chair any time soon, because now…it’s my writing chair.

Max Elliot Anderson