I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

So, when I finished the book, I was told I could write a dedication and/or acknowledgements. Do you have any idea how long it took me to write these? Longer than the entire book! How do you acknowledge everyone that helped to make the book a reality? What if I inadvertently leave off someone? Will they stop speaking to me? Will they throw rotten tomatoes at me every time we cross paths? What if I thank too many people and my acknowledgements end up being longer than chapters 1-5? How do you go about writing acknowledgements? How do you decide to whom you'll dedicate the book?

I sent what I'd written to my agent with the question, "How does this look?" She replied with something along the lines of, "Oh that's interesting. Or you know, you could always use actual sentences when you write it." Guess my first draft wasn't so great after all. Apparently it's not good to write stuff like, "I thank my editor, Beth, for making me sound not stupid." Gee, yeah, that doesn't sound too stupid. @@

I looked over that original draft and decided that maybe I didn't thank enough people. Oh no, I'm going to offend someone by leaving them out. I rewrote it. "...and I want to thank my first grade teacher who was so nice even if did she cast me as a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz and gave Cheryl the part of Dorothy. And I want to thank my mailman for delivering my mail and that one guy at the grocery store who held the door for me a couple months ago and, oh yeah, I can't forget Jen and Sue and Julie and Deb and Ginny and Dee and Melissa and Jane and Candace and Nancy and Amy and Stacie and Debra and Kim and Kristyi and Erin and Michelle and..."

OK, maybe that's a little ridiculous. Back to the drawing board. "I want to thank everyone who has helped me." Nah, not specific enough.

Sitting back down, I wrote, "thank you to the library who let me write there where it was quiet except for the time those obnoxious guys who reeked of stale smoke sat down and talked way too loudly about chess..." Ummm, "thank you to the good people at Bacardi...". How about, "thank you to the makers of Ghiradelli chocolate..."

"I want to thank the academy..." Oh crap. I'm not accepting an Oscar! This is HARD!

I went to my bookshelf to look for examples. Unfortunately, I only have kiddie books on my shelves and most of them didn't have a page of acknowledgements. If they did, they'd probably sound like, "Thank you to Lou for taking me to the zoo, where I learned about the gnu and ate a slushy that was blue."

I finally gave up and let Brooklyn and Clayton type the acknowledgements. So, when you get my book, please understand that I will sign it in bold, black marker right over the acknowledgement page.