​     I wrote, although not regularly. We used to watch the Creature Features on Friday night, and I wrote a couple stories about the Mummy and the Wolf Man. I wrote a story about Batman. A children's magazine we ended up subscribing to, along with a bunch of other magazines, began a feature where readers would send in "think" pieces, and what I came up as a submission concerned my recent doubts about the existence of God. (I think I was probably twelve.) They published my essay, along with my address, so for a few weeks I got a ton of religious pamphlets in the mail, as well as a one-year subscription to the magazine itself. I was hooked. It never occurred to me that I would ever do anything but write after that. Dad had copies of the essay printed to hand out to friends.

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