Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (37 page)

Tips on Writing Acknowledgements:

1. Make sure you thank people who are related to you and put up with you saying things like: I stink. Man, do I stink. What am I doing this for?

a. Thanks to Em and Doug, for always having faith in me when I couldn’t even figure out what the word “faith” meant. Your love means everything.

2. Make sure you thank the people who fed you for eighteen years, have seen your bottom naked, and lived to tell the tale. A-hem.

a. Thanks to my parents, Betty Morse and Llewellyn Barnard, for being goofy, AND loving, AND supportive.

3. Make sure you thank people you tormented your entire life, who put up with their younger sister and her poor taste in shoes and her lack of organizational skills and inability to send birthday cards on time. I buy them. I just forget to mail them. I swear.

a. Thanks to my sister, Deb, and my brother, Bruce.

4. Make sure you thank your grandmothers, because they saw your naked bottom, too, and they could theoretically sell photos. BUT THEY WON’T!

a. Thanks to my Nana, Rena Morse, and my Grammy, Florence Barnard, for your love of words.

5. Thank the mentors who made you write better because they put up with you saying things like “I’m sorry this is stinks so bad.” There’s no amount of money that can pay for that.

a. Thanks to Kathi Appelt, Sharon Darrow, Tim Wynne-Jones, and Rita Williams-Garcia for your brilliance and encouragement.

6. You HAVE TO THANK your editors! This is terribly important. Now, what are their names again? Just kidding.

a. Thanks, Andrew Karre, for being the best editor I could ever ask for and for all your beautiful patience during my telephone tangents. You made this book a thousand times better than when it first crossed your desk. Thanks for snatching it up.

b. Thanks, Rhiannon Ross, for believing in this book and for making me believe in it again. Your emails made my year.

7. You also HAVE TO THANK your agent, but even if I didn’t have to, I would because he is STELLAR and BRILLIANT and AMAZING.

a. Thank you, Edward Necarsulmer IV, a great knight, a kind soul, and a snazzy dresser even if you’ve never worn a flannel shirt . . . okay, maybe because of that.

8. Make sure you thank your friends who put up with you whining and not always answering the phone.

a. Thanks to the Whirligigs at Vermont College. The best class of writers ever. There is nothing wrong with being freakishly close.

b. Thanks to Grady Holloway, Don Radovich, Jennifer Osborn, and Dottie Vachon for eating lunch with me.

c. Thanks to Chris Maselli, Emily Wing Smith, Johanna Staley, and Bruce Frost, for making me feel safe and loved, even when I was far from home.

9. Breathe. This list is so long. Worry if other authors’ lists are so long. Decide not to care. Make sure you thank two of your favorite people of all time.

a. Thanks to Emily Ciciotte and Belle Vachon for loaning my book your first names.

10. Thank important people that you love.

a. Thanks to Joe Tullgren, my first gay boyfriend, and most likely not my only gay boyfriend. You are the best and you taught me so much about love.

11. Thank the guy who taught you more about writing than anyone else in the entire world, the guy who made you believe in yourself, the best high school writing teacher the world has ever known.

a. Thank you Joseph Sullivan. Someday, Mr. Sullivan, one of us is going to get you that damn beach house. I swear it.

12. Stop thanking people now. Whew. Go ask Nice Editor Man if list is too long.

13. Ignore what he says if it’s negative. Tell him he’s a super editor guy if it’s positive. Yay!