Driven
Page 23
The Gang of Legend
The Antecessor Conundrum
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I've written so many books, and I release so many books lately that I've made my acknowledgments just a rote, copy/paste thing that usually involves the same cast of characters over and over. My theory? By the time I get to acknowledgments, I'm so close to publication that I kinda limp through the last mile. I used to work a lot harder to thank people, but that requires creativity and...like I said, last mile, tired. If you've ever run a marathon, or worked all the way through to the bottom of a bag of cookies, you get what I'm saying, right?
But here...I'm going to make a real effort. Because the people who work on my books? This cast of characters behind the scenes? They are freaking amazeballs and deserve me to take a moment, every once and a while, to not copy/paste and say how awesome they are. So this is that moment, on the occasion of the thirtieth(!) Sienna book, especially given that most all of these people have been here since the beginning or as near to it as not to matter.
Sarah Barbour has been editing/watching out for Sienna since UNTOUCHED: The Girl in the Box, Book 2. She impressed me early on by figuring out during the sample edit for that volume that I'd misspelled (in a fairly serious way) the river near Tunguska. Whoops. She also figured out the proper spelling for a Black Hawk helicopter (I thought it was all one word!) and so many other things. She's been stuck in the car with me during this drive, at various junctures as ireful at me as the rest of you (she threatened to upcharge me for editing in the event of there ever being another Zack), and for all this and so much more...thank you, Sarah.
Jeff Bryan has been keeping an eye on Sienna since LIMITLESS: Out of the Box #1, providing a weather eye on some of the liberties I take with the English language. He's functioned as a proofreader and also a set of eyes that pokes holes in the logic flaws I occasionally build into my manuscripts. More than a few times I've laughed my ass off reading his margin comments, thus saving me from falling asleep during the tedious task of parsing edits.
The final proof was performed by the illustrious curry queen of England (it's a real thing, I'm making it so), Jo Evans. Jo has been reading Sienna since the early days of Girl in the Box and has been proofing for me since...jeez. Are you really going to make me get up and scan the volumes on my shelf to find out? FINE. It was DESTINY: The Girl in the Box, Book 9. She's been a constant edifier and – dare I say it? Friend. She's always front and center with the first review, too.
Karri Klawiter has designed almost every cover you see on my books, and...dang, they look good. She's always quick to respond to those, “Heyyy, I was writing this book, and it's almost done, and I know you're probably super busy, but howsabout I send you some ideas and you try and squeeze something in somewhere in that two minutes per day of extra time you have?” And she does, and miraculous things occur. They say you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but people do – which is why I'm freaking thankful to have Karri on my side in this.
Formatting for pretty much all my books has been done for the last year or two, and also at the beginning, by Nick. Nick who? Just Nick. Those who know, know Nick. But none of you really know Nick – except maybe Jo. See, Nick's the man behind the scenes. And he prefers, these days, to stay behind the scenes. But lemme tell you something about Nick – Nick has been saving my publishing life since day one. He's been, alternately, and sometimes all on the same project – my editor, my cover artist, my co-author, my proofreader, my formatter, my wingman (“Stand by for Titanfall!”) and my friend. When I have a problem, my first thought these days is, “Welp...maybe Nick can fix this?” And you know what? HE F***ING FIXES IT like 99.9% of the time, even when I've just about written it off as hopeless. To paraphrase Kill Bill, Volume 2...Nick is the man.
I'm always cagey talking about my family because, writing about the darker corners of human nature, I feel there are probably an endless supply of potential Annie Wilkes wannabes out there. So I don't name names, ages (especially in the case of my wife) or any of that stuff. I'm the author, you're the reader – sorry if this doesn't make us best buddies, but I'm here to entertain you. My family and personal life is really quite boring, and I like it that way – it lets me focus on putting drama on the page rather than sorting through the broken shards of its wrath loosed in my home. To that end, as always, I want to thank my wife and kids, my parents and my in-laws, for helping in all the ways they do. I couldn't do any of this if things were as crazy in my home as they are in my books (again, warning you aspiring Annie Wilkes's), so...to them...and all the others...you have my thanks.