I'd Like To Thank The Academy

Since I’ve changed the routines of my day and am writing fiction first, these blog entries are a bit harder than they used to be. My mind is still stuck in Book Mode.

Jock Finnernan kept a clean establishment to be sure (“You could take out a man’s appendix on me floor!”) but the smells from the grill under the taps, from the sticky bottoms of glasses waiting to be washed, from the endless supply of cotton rags used to rub things down all reminded Iris of her father. The smell of drink was the yeasty odor of feeling hungry and fearing an angry slap. Whisky, on the other hand, was the smell of mother and of turning skeletal and yellow and finally, of dying on the couch.

That’s what I’ve been doing. And switching gears is rough. I’ve tried and scarpered on three full length posts about Easter Week, Postmodernism and Ecumenism and What Sucks About Pinterest. So now I’m taking a different tack.*

I’m going to make today’s blog entry an Acknowledgments Page for my life at this moment. Because no matter what happens with these books there are folks who need to be thanked.

I don’t have an agent and I haven’t hired my editor yet (that’s at least three months out.)

But I can definitely say a giant thank you to Aunt B. for setting a great example for how to self-publish and self-market.

Thanks also go to the ever-quasianonymous nm and the well-known bridgett for talking me off a particular ledge.

Thanks to Jill Jackson, who is a psychologist and not a rock star, as her name would make you think. She made me feel better about a lot of things and is also going to show me pictures of her trip to Disney World.

Thanks to the inspirational Kat Heckenbach for many things. Words of insight on various choices, regular pictures of her new dog and most of all understanding why it’s taking me forever to finally read her book.

Thanks to Jolan Warren Bishop. She has definitely turned out to be the best thing about dating her older brother. Probably because she’s more interesting than baseball. I needed help and she answered and that was also awesome.

Thanks to Mandi Lynch who also doesn’t care for hipster Bacon and also answers when I need help with sick brothers and sick books.

Some of the largest and most effusive thanks are due to Pat Todoroff who set me straight on time management and sent me the book that every writer should keep beside their Bible for daily devotions.

Johne Cooke deserves grateful thanks for putting up with these blog posts and keeping the dream alive for lovers of true science fiction everywhere.

Carole McDonnell gets much thanks for looking over raw pages and making useful suggestions. She’s changed the way I do things.

Mike Duran wins praise and thanks for running one of my favourite time sucks and one of the best ways to meet like-minded fellow delusionists.

Jill Domschot has the coolest blog design in the world and writes some of the best flash fiction out there. But I thank her for being a like-minded fellow traveller, making me feel not so alone and more than a few times for making me laugh.

I’m sure I’m forgetting someone and I’ll try to make it up to you in a future post. But for now the band is playing me off the stage. In this case the band sounds like two dogs who have to wee in the backyard.

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*(NOTE: It’s “different tack” as in “take the boat in a different direction” because “tack” is a sailing manoeuver that refers to turning the boat. When you “Take A Different TACKKKKK” you are turning your thoughts and behaviours to a new direction. It may not be TACTFUL for me to point this out but every time you say “Take a different tact” someone is rolling her eyes.)