The Hank's Guide Series Acknowledgements Page

             How it Happened

             I read Ready Play One. I had no interest in emulating a style or write about a dystopian future (In fact, just the opposite).  But, I could tell that Ernest Cline absolutely loved all the source material.  He thought about all these cool things that he loved, and made a story around them. I previously tried to write four novels, and finished two of them.  They sucked.  But something about this book got me to thinking.  I was writing blog posts about time travel and how much I’ve loved the genre since I was ten years old. Instead of immediately jumping in, I decided to take my time and make a list of everything I loved about time travel.  The scenes, the gadgets, the tropes, the clichés, the problems, the points of view.  All of it. 

             Then, I thought about point of view. There weren’t enough interest stories about time travel as a thing that happens to you.  It is usually from the point of view of the traveler and how he deals with the phenomena.  I wanted the main character to be an unknown lynch pin in world events, and go from there. So, instead of going back to kill Hitler, what if the story was about the art teacher that criticized him in school and turned his life in a different direction? What if you unknowingly set off a chain of events that you weren’t aware of? After I had that, I just kept going.  Time travel tropes from every movie I could think of are all over this, including how it is perceived from story to story.  It’s a fascinating subject because at present, it doesn’t exist.

             After that, the series is really about a relationship between the two main characters.  Book 1 they meet, Book 2 their relationship is in full swing, Book 3, they are becoming old farts together. I like a fast-paced book, so I cut out everything I hated about adventure stories. I wanted them lean, and that’s what I got.

             I started writing in the first place because I read Salinger and thought: “Shit, I could do this”.  Ego much?  It is a long, lonely, and mostly unrewarding process that I can’t stop.  But when I get to bundle the stories up and put them out there, it almost feels like I’m writing for a reason.

Acknowledgments

I have too many thoughts for a single acknowledgements page. I will have to do my best to encapsulate everything into an acknowledgments post.

             I must first thank my wife Amy for supporting my 1,000^th creative idea in the last 25 years. She helped at the beginning when I was setting all of this up, even though she has zero interest in time travel.  I have to thank Jo James for reading Book 1 and giving me feedback, as well as creating both sets of my book covers.  I would not be able to do that on my own, because I know nothing of design. Thanks to Andy Tegethoff and Kit Lorelied for unbidden feedback and support, and actually reading what I wrote.  That also extends to Serina Braddock for contacting me out of the blue after reading Book 1 and offering support. 

             Once I realized I had a fun story that desperately need editing, I received the voluntary services of Janet Bucher and Missy Petschel, who edited my many typos and made my work more presentable.  It was on their own time and I can’t thank them enough. I have a newfound respect for editors.  But I still don’t want to be one.

             Very few people have read the Hank’s Guide series at this point.  I’m one of thousands of self-publishers on Amazon, trying to scrape together a following.  I appreciate anyone who has read or rated the books. I hope to find my people out there who are willing to take a chance on what I write.  I’m old enough to know that this is the thing I want to do. 

            

              Trivia

             I love me some Easter eggs.  I also try to throw in a few shout-outs to friends and fam when I can:

             Hank Lloyd is 100% named after Christopher Lloyd, aka Emmitt “Doc” Brown.

             The name Eve Elbsong wasn’t completely fabricated.  I have a friend named Eric Ellison who once put his signature on a sign-up sheet, and a piece of mail arrived days later addressed to “Eve Elbsong”.  He’s mentioned because when we were too young to understand astrophysics, we used the talk time travel and wonder how it worked. (Interesting note: MS Word tries to autocorrect “Elbsong” to “Ellison”.)

             Audrey Cruz was named after Aubrey Plaza, who I still think would play her in a movie version.

             Serina Babcock is named for the aforementioned Serina Braddock.  She’s family through my wife’s side, and once I told my wife about a glowing review I received from Serina, my wife insisted she make an appearance in Book 2.

             One of Taylor’s men was named Braxton, after one of the newest members of my wife’s family.

             At the end of Book 2, the trio crashes into an abandoned movie theater, recreating a scene from Back to the Future.

             The mercenary named Brady in Book 3 is named for Tom Brady, who beat my Seahawks in a Super Bowl.  I just wanted him to look stupid.

             The scene in Book 1 where Hank takes the travelers to the street he grew up on was lifted from a previous short story I wrote about time travel.

             Audrey’s assistant Cal was originally one of the travelers.  I had to cut him out because it got too confusing.

             I set a Frontiers facility in Palau.  I’ve never been, but I’ve met someone from there, which is probably one more than you have.

             Eve Elbsong created the NHE battery. My kids are named Nick, Holden, and Emily.

             There’s a lot of comic book stuff because I’ve only in the past few years began reading them. However, I’ve had a lifelong disdain for the types of nerds who like to ruin everything, and therefore, so did Hank.

             Since the release of the first book, NBC began a new time travel show called Timeless, which is mostly shitty. However, there are two items worth noting.  The main cast of travelers consist of one white guy, one white gal and one black guy, which is definitely something I noticed.  (Also, in Episode 6, they travel to the date of the erased Watergate tape, which is June 20, 1972.  That’s the day I was born. That has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was neat.)