The Crystal Bridge (The Lost Shards Book 1) (29 page)

Acknowledgements

It all started in the first grade. Too far back? Maybe, but I’m taking you there anyway. I don’t remember my teacher’s name, but she made my shy little self stand in front of the class and complete math problems. Everyone laughed, I’m sure of it, as my shaky hands drew in the wrong numbers. My hatred of math began. That will be important later. Thank you, nameless teacher.

When I was eight I went looking for something more to read, and one of my older brothers pushed
Ender’s Game
into my small hands. I’ve never been the same. Seriously! It broke me and put me back together, opening doors in my still-forming brain. I’ve been addicted to well written sci-fi and fantasy ever since. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Orson Scott Card. I hope to meet you someday and thank you in person.

I wrote my first short story when I was eleven. It told of a young triceratops who had to move, leaving his friends and the lush forests behind. He traveled many days through the desert until he found a beautiful valley and made new friends. My teacher loved it and asked to keep a copy. I’m almost positive any similarities to a cartoon movie that came out years later are coincidental.

When I was thirteen, I was bullied and harassed for being a nerd, wearing glasses, being skinny, being extraordinarily white, and a million other things that I couldn’t control. In the bullies’ defense, these were all true.

Two very long years of pain and sorrow, but it was good for me in a twisted way. It drove me into books and the escapes they offered me. It made me compassionate and humble. I can look back now and see that all these things made me a better man and a better writer. Thank you, jerk-faced bullies.

In high school I wrote poetry, but never fancied myself a writer. Mrs. Hazen and AP English made me think twice about that decision. We wrote millions of essays. She loved my writing. Mrs. Hazen was a tough teacher, but she made me feel like my words mattered, like the essays I wrote made a difference somehow. I can never thank her enough.

High school is also where I met one of my lifelong best friends, Adam. He’s weird in a good way. He’s never discouraged me from being anything I wanted to be and he’ll always be an inspiration in my life. He’s a good man and a great father, something this world could use more of in every way. Thank you, my stinky Adam friend.

I started out as a Biochemist major. I’ve always loved biology, physics, and the tiny mechanisms of life. It fascinates me that life exists in a universe that is designed to tear it down. Entropy rips apart order and grows the more ordered a structure becomes. Biology is so ordered and so beautiful. It shouldn’t have come to be at all within our chaos riddled universe, but there it is, fighting against entropy and cheating death by renewing itself over and over again. Life kicks butt!

I took several biology classes, loving every second. Then I saw the math courses required for my major. My lifelong nemesis taunted me once again with intense courses of mind numbing equations.

I suddenly found myself as an English Literature major. Yes, I sacrificed a great career and more money than I will ever see, but, seriously, it was
a lot
of math. I’m shivering just thinking about it. Thank you, math, for making me change my mind.

College was a blur. I worked forty-five hours a week at a hotel and took full credits. I didn’t have much of a life. I read everything I could and wrote eleventy billion essays.

I took a creative writing course, just for fun, still not planning on writing much. Professor Brennan was an odd woman who reminded me of a very large bird, but she unlocked something in me I hadn’t expected. She tore some of my writing to bloody shreds and held some of it up as great examples of fiction. She pushed me to explore writing from perspectives I never would have attempted. I thought of myself as a writer for the first time in my life. Thank you, beautiful teacher.

I got a notebook to write down random observations of the world. I didn’t use it much, but then I started keeping it by my bed and writing down quick notes of my dreams. I have the occasional vivid dream, usually just a tiny scene, but my mind builds up the backstory for me, filling in gaps. I know I’m lucky. I don’t know why I have this gift while others dream of pink balloons morphing into bunny monsters. I’m so grateful that I have dozens of ideas for stories and novels.

I met Jazzy after college and I knew I needed someone like her in my life, someone stable, good, and kind. I spent days telling her all about my dreams and how I would write them. She gave me the best advice I’ve received as I told her about two different dreams, one about computer simulations reaching into another dimension, the other about a boy traveling to other worlds through wormholes only he can see.

She said, “You should combine those two.”

This novel grew out of that statement and the support she’s given to me through it all. Thank you, Jazzy. You let me quit my hotel job and only freaked out about finances a couple hundred times.

I also have to thank my last job. I was working fifty to sixty hours a week while making a good deal less money than they’d promised while a woman who repeatedly violated company policy made my life miserable and never managed to get fired. That job failed me more than any job has ever failed me.

This sounds bitter, but this job is the reason my book got written. I’d been writing bit by bit for four or five years. I wrote at least eighty percent of it after I left that place. Thank you, soul-crushing job. I needed the push.

I can’t end this without thanking all of my family. You made me the weirdo who write sci-fi and fantasy. Thank you, Robert, Michelle, Mike, Mark, Becky, Teresa, Denise, and David. Yes, I have eight siblings. Thank you, Mom, for loving the nerdy kid who wanted to be an astronaut, painter, paleontologist, biochemist, professor, writer, and half a dozen other things I can’t or don’t want to remember.

I have to thank my friends who encouraged me and promised to buy my books someday. You are awesome. Break out your wallets. Someday is now. I really couldn’t have done it without you though. Thank you to my online friends too, those I know well and those I’ve never met. You’ve been supportive when it was needed most.

Thank you, Brent and Emily, for reading my work and telling me it wasn’t the worst thing you’ve ever read. Thank you, Karl-Erik Bennion, for the beautiful cover designs. Thank you, Ariel, for polishing my words and making me fix commas that I unjustly ignored.

I am now an author thanks to all of you, even you, math, but I still dislike you. Stay away now.