Acknowledgements
I owe many thanks to many people without whose support, advice, and encouragement this book could not have been written:
To Molly, who read along with the very first draft and asked for more.
To Terrianne, Paulina, Melissa, and Jen, who slogged through early drafts that were a lot more rough than diamond and said, “Good job.”
To Jake and Paula, who freely offered aid and advice to a stranger as a favor, and to Nikki and Philana, who stood willing to do the same.
To Leah, who took the story line by line and made it better, and to the Open Book Writing Group, who took it chapter by chapter and cheered me on.
To the passenger who told me I could follow my true passion without fear, and to Chris Baty, the gung-ho founder of National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org), w
