For years I have dreamed about writing a book or books. I imagine that a lot of people say at some point in their lives that they want to write a book about something they know. However, I personally did not have any idea what would be a really good project to write about.

As the years have passed and I became a father, the idea of writing for children became more and more a constant thought. I have read countless children's books that left me saying things from, "I can write better than that" and "why would anyone want to publish this" to "That was a great book!"

As the idea of a children's book became more than just a thought, I did not want to write about magical places or purely fiction stories and for sure I could not write books that rhyme.

As we all know, opportunity knocks on your door but a few times in our life, and for me it only took a moment, when I least expected it, to actually come up with Drew.

It was in the fall of 2004. I was flying from San Francisco to Arcata in Humboldt County.  As I sat staring out the window of the plane, I could see drops of water swirling on the engine of the left propeller as the two propeller plane flew through the clouds.

Without realizing it, my imagination took over, as it often does.  I started to imagine the drops of water struggling to hold on to the surface of the engine cover. Somehow the drops started to take on their own character traits and so did the engine.  If you have read "The Quest" you may have realized that one of the drops of water became "Drew Droplet™" and the engine is actually "Peter Prop".

After that initial imagination session while on the plane, the rest is sort of history. As soon as I got a chance I wrote down a few ideas and drew some sketches.  Over the last two years I have spent countless hours imagining and writing the initial story.

At the beginning, the story was going to be called "The Everlasting Adventure" but towards the end it finally changed to "The Quest".

After the first draft of the book I asked my wife Alicia to read it and to start making changes. Of course since neither she or I are expert book writers, the first thing we did was to start editing and removing portions of the story left and right.

We stopped ourselves when we realized that we were cutting out a lot of what made the story great. After that, we approached it as a team effort. We allowed our imaginations to run wild and think of all the possibilities. Hence the story grew and grew.  Once we had exhausted all the possibilities for this particular story, we did the editing.

Towards the end, we asked a few of our friends, their children, and our children, to critic the story and give us their opinion. The result is, what we believe, an excellent story that should captivate children all over the world.

Of course we have been faced with many hurdles along the way.  Since we did not want to go through the long waiting process of submitting to publishers and waiting for their answers, we've decided to do everything ourselves and now, after countless hours of work, we have finally published "The Quest".

We do all the printing, binding, publishing, writing, web design, sales, mailing, etc. We do it all because it gives us the freedom to chose what we want to do without changing anything we believe needs to be part of the equation. Of course the publishing may change in the future if we can get a deal where we do not have to make compromises.

For instance, we decided to also publish the book in a digital format and to make it available online, in its entirety, to the public and children all over the world for free. Had we had an agent or a publisher, we may not have been able to do this right away or perhaps not at all.

We believe we can provide adventure and learning to children everywhere without being greedy.   

So, to all of you parents and readers out there, we thank you for your time and hope that our story encourages you to take your opportunities when they knock.

Please fell free to check "Drew's Places" to see photos of "The Ponds" and "Grandfather's House" and other places described within the book.

Thank you again for your time and have fun.

John Chavez