Dedication Dilemmas

When trying to write a book in 26 days it is often difficult not to get ahead of yourself. Often I find myself leaping to the finished product, and I am not even to the part of the book that tells me I can start writing my own book yet.

My cross country coach used to tell me to "run in the present." 

To me, that's good advice for living life in general. It doesn't pay to dwell in the past or to think too far in advance. Playing the what-if game is dangerous, time consuming, and (often) unproductive. The idea with living in the present is to assess what is going well and what can be improved. Determine how to continue doing the good things and focus on improving the things that aren't going well.

This a difficult philosophy to adhere to when writing because there needs to be an end game. In order to achieve that end game, there might be adjustments that need to be made in what has already been written. It is hard to simply keep plowing ahead, especially when problems are clearly evident.

But there are other things related to the end game that are hard not to think about as well, like the book as a whole. In addition to the story, there is a cover, a dedication page and sometimes a few pages acknowledging the people who helped the book come to fruition in the back of the book. 

I have often thought about who I would dedicate my first book to, and that led me to thinking about what that process might entail.

Do I ask the person if it is ok to dedicate my book to them? What if they say no? I imagine this has to have happened to someone at some point in history. Out there somewhere is a bad writer, a nice person, but a bad writer, who for some reason or another feels compelled to dedicate their book to someone who really does not want their name associated with this person's writing. 

That must be one of the more awkward conversation people can have:

Author: I just finished my book and it's going to be published!

Person: Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!

Author: Thanks for all your encouragement.

Person: My pleasure.

Author: I'd like to show my appreciation by dedicating the book to you.

Person:....Oh...noooo, that's ok. Thank you, but...nooooo

To avoid this, I think I will only dedicate my books to dead people. Dead people aren't going to care if my book is any good or not, and I can avoid shaming anyone who otherwise might not want to be associated with my writing.

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