The Hardest Thing to Write

I wrote a novel! We all know this. It’s the reason I’m writing this post and (hopefully) the reason you are reading it. And though I won’t suggest it was easy (if it were easy, everyone would do it), but it also wasn’t terribly difficult. I mean, there were hard days, ones where writers’ block hit hard, or where I saw the scene in my head and the words wouldn’t come, and others when I simply didn’t feel like writing another word.

I am here to tell you now that, with the final polish finished and Whatever Will Be MOSTLY ready to go to the proofreader, I have stumbled across the hardest part of the novel to write.

It’s the fucking acknowledgements.

I know what you’re thinking. How hard can it be to thank some people? I know this is what you’re thinking, because a week ago, it’s what I thought. I finished the polish of the last chapter and thought, “Okay, a couple of hours to knock out the acknowledgements, and this book will be finished finished.”

I wrote two paragraphs and stalled. And there are a lot of people I still need to thank! Though writing is really a solitary endeavor, I couldn’t do it at all without the support of a great number of people, many of whom I’m sure are unaware of their significant contribution. Or maybe they know exactly what their contribution is, and I will forget to mention them at all. Ugh.

I know it’s all in my head and I just have to get out of my own way. I’m caught between saying something flippant (think “Yeah, thanks”) and meaningful and…it’s hard. I have some hang ups about needing people (in that I don’t want to admit I need them at all. For anything), but the older I get, the more I try to remember to tell people that they are important to me, because–as I’ve mentioned in a previous post–we are not promised tomorrow. That doesn’t make it any easier for me. (We could armchair psychology the shit out of this, if I had the inclination. Which I totally don’t.)

All right. Enough procrastinating. I’m off to write the damn acknowledgements. I hope I don’t forget anyone.