Paying It Forward

Inspiring Me Today: S. R. Johannes (NOT  Haley Joel Osment)

No, this isn't a post about the year 2000 film with the horrible, needless ending that I absolutely loathe. Although, a post about horrible, needless endings that provide nothing but shock value would be an interesting post...

Ok, back on track.

Anyway, this post is part of S. R. Johannes's "Pay It Forward" contest. Up for grabs: a personal recommendation from Shelli (Johannes) to her agent, Alyssa Henkin at Trident Media. Awesome, right? Here are the details.

So, I'm posting an entry over there with my pitch in 4 sentences or less. Here, I have another requirement: thank someone who has helped me along the way.

This is the real reason I want to do this contest. Yes, winning would be awesome, but I love having an excuse to thank those that have been a help.

Now this is an exhaustive list or an acknowledgements page. This is just an "off-the-top-of-my-head" round-up.

• My wife, Wendy Davis. She is so incredibly supportive. She's a SAHM and awesome at it. How she does everything she does is beyond me, and I certainly couldn't do what I do without her. Of course, she's also my ghostwriter, and a lot of my best ideas come from her.
• My girls, Finley and Rowynn. They're such an encouragement to me, and make writing fun.
• My parents. They are my first and biggest supporters. They even gave me a ticket to DFWcon this year for Christmas.
• Rocky Westbrook. A fellow writer, filmmaker, friend, and former co-worker. He listened to ideas for The Dowered Three Series when it didn't even exist yet. 
• My friends Emily and Matt. They were my "control cases" as I wrote the book. I didn't tell them anything that was going to happen, and yet they read each chapter as I finished it, giving me chapter-by-chapter reactions on what they thought was going to happen, etc.
• S.A. (Sheri) Larsen. Sheri helped me form my first ever crit group, and was one of the first people outside my close circle of friends to befriend me and help me with my MS. She proved that there were nice people out there who were willing to help.
• Casey McCormick. My first contact with Casey was writing a Tip Tuesday. That was nearly a year ago. Since then, I've written several tips and guest posts on Literary Rambles, as well as emailing Casey several times with questions I had, etc. She's always been kind to give her advice and support.
• Holly Bodger. A few months ago, Holly helped me get my logline ready for Authoress's Baker's Dozen contest, giving her time to do a back-and-forth of emails as we tweaked and retweaked my logline into perfection. Then, my email didn't even get in before the spots filled. It was a great logline no one would ever see. But then, I totally pressed my luck and asked if she could help me expand it into a query. To my relief, she did! Now, I have a (hopefully) great query that I'll be using when I restart that process.
• Amanda Johnson. One of my go-to advice people, this wonder-intern for the mysterious Awesome Agent (or AA) has been a great help in the short time I've known her.
• My Beta Readers Heather Kelly, Ishta Mercurio, Dianne Salerni, and E. (Elizabeth) Arroyo. These guys all gave AMAZING tips on my novel, all coming from different perspectives. Heather gave great tips on character and tension building. Ishta gave great tips on developing my romantic plot and MC. Dianne targeted quite a few logistical fallacies for me, which bug the crap out of me in other people's novels. Liz gave some great overall flow advice and pointed out specific places I could take my writing to the next level. You all rock! Thanks!

Like I said, this is certainly not an exhaustive list, but just a few of the people I really wanted to thank today. Tomorrow, it might be a different list! Lol. Of course, a huge thanks also goes to my friends, family, and anyone who follows me on the blog, twitter, or Facebook (So... you)! So many incredible people!

Thanks everyone!!