by Jacob Taylor
On the specifics of the writing process and story construction, I owe a debt of gratitude to the following books: Stephen King’s On Writing, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, John McPhee’s Draft No. 4, Ryan Holiday’s Perennial Seller, and Dave Chilton for his top notch course on book marketing for self-publishers.
On a personal note, my family (and most notably my wife) put up with a lot in the multi-year process of writing this book. Authorship can be a soul-grinding roller coaster. I apologize that I had to cash in so many chips to get this project done. And thanks for your excellent edits, hon! Thank you to my mom for using your proofreading superpowers.
Thank you to Lonnie Rush, Toby Carlisle, Mike McCoy, Bogie Baranowski, and Darren Virassammy for reading early drafts and providing helpful feedback. And a special thank you to Barbara Oakley who had the courage to tell me the early writing stunk (which it did!). You pointed me in the right direction and provided the necessary encouragement to make drastic improvements. You saved me so much embarrassment by being a good friend.