Acknowledgements

Some of you may know that I recently released a book.

For those of you who don’t, just so you know: I recently released a book.

My book has most of the normal book things in it. It has a title page, and a copyright page and a Dedication to My Totally Wonderful Wife page. Also there’s a story in there as well.

But one thing I did not include in my book was an Acknowledgements page.

Why? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found those Acknowledgement sections to be dry and boring litanies of people I don’t know doing things I don’t care about. When I see “Acknowledgements” I read “Skip This Section.” (The exception to this rule is Chuck Wendig’s Acknowledgements page for Irregular Creatures which was an absolute screaming hoot.)

But now that I’ve gone through the process of getting something ready to toss out into the cold and crowded world of ebooks I know why all those other authors wanted to include those lists of people who I didn’t know. The dirty secret is this: writing is a social process.

We think we can do it alone, but we can’t. We need support and advice and all kinds of prodding and poking to make our stories the best they can be.

So without further ado, I’m going to give you my Acknowledgements. These are people who helped to make this book what it is.

Ashley Berg

Is thanking your spouse a cliche? Well, yes, but for very good reason. In my dedication I said she would have loved me just as much if I had never written a word. And that’s the truth. Sometimes you need someone at your back screaming at you to go farther and do better. But sometimes you need someone by your side to tell you that it’s all gonna be okay. Every day I tell her how my writing went and no matter whether it was great or terrible she’s always there to encourage me. Every writer should be as lucky.

Ellie Anne Soderstrom

I’ve mentioned Ellie’s contribution here before, but it bears repeating. Ellie did a fantastic job of cleaning up the snaggling loose ends of my prose and making it all flow like it should. She also served as the projects head cheerleader. Knowing how much she liked the story really helped boost my self confidence about my writing and motivated me to make this release as good as possible.

Piper Bayard

If Ellie was the head cheerleader, Piper was the head coach. She was the one screaming at me in the locker room to get out there and clean up my act. Well, that may be a bit harsh. But she did give me a great critique that helped me clean up the ending of my story. She pitched in and helped to take it to the next level. She’s an awesome lady and a great writer.

Hoover

Because it’s really his story when you get right down to it. For those of you who don’t know, Hoover is my dog. I never had a dog before I had Hoover. My family has had dogs and my wife had a dog when I married her, but Hoover is the first dog that I really felt I could call my own. His pure joy and enthusiasm inspired much of the character of the dog in the book, and it was him getting tangled up out in the hot Florida sun for hours when we were gone that first inspired me to write this story. He’s fine now by the way, chasing a squeaky toy as I’m writing this a generally being his awesome doggy self.

I could probably go on. In one way or another many many people in my life have helped to shape me into the writer I am today. But these are the major players for this particular work. These are the ones who made this book what it is today. If you read it and like it, they’re probably the reason why. If you hate it…well there’s obviously something wrong with you. I mean it’s a story about a dog who fights zombies. How can you not like that?

So again, thanks to all who helped to make this story what it is. And thanks to you dear reader. Without you this would all be in vain.