Do You Think This Is Strange?
Page 23
My first and greatest mentor was my mother, Donna Milner, who has this strange ability to make those things I struggle with look easy. This book got out of the gate because she read the first chapter, early, early on. If her emailed response could have had volume, it would have been turned up to eleven: keep writing this damned thing.
The author Anthony Dalton was the first to tell me “You are going to be published.” He was the first outside my family to say that this was a good book, the first to say that someone needed to read it, and the one who introduced me to Taryn Boyd, my publisher.
Taryn Boyd was the first person to see me as more than someone who wrote something they liked. She saw me as someone she could make money off of. Every writer’s ultimate goal. She also saw me as something no one had called me before: literary. Every writer’s and all that.
Taryn demonstrated some kind of prestidigitatious genius when she paired me with Colin Thomas, my editor, because he turned out to have an unnerving knack of knowing where the bullshit was. My book has been a lengthy process of cutting off the unnecessary fat, and Colin was a master at separating the tissue from the bone.
I need to thank more people than there is room here, but I’ll include most of the cream: Wanda Ann La Claire was the first person outside of my family to read and edit my book, and her help was much appreciated. Tracy Wilkinson, my boss, who put up with my angst during our weekly reviews. And then there was the stranger at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, when I was pitching the book to agents, who overheard me and said, “Are you the guy writing that book about the autistic kid?” I said I was, and she said, “You keep going. Everyone’s talking about it.” That was the moment I glimpsed that maybe this book could eventually be read by complete strangers. Again, every writer’s ultimate goal.
Be sure to visit aaroncullydrake.com for outtakes, bloopers, and deleted scenes.
AARON CULLY DRAKE has written for newspapers and magazines, and is a former reporter and editor. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife, son, and autistic daughter, all of whom keep advising him to shut up. Do You Think This Is Strange? is his first novel. To learn more about Aaron and the book, please visit aaroncullydrake.com.
Copyright © 2015 Aaron Cully Drake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (ACCESS Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca.
Brindle & Glass Publishing Ltd.
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Drake, Aaron Cully, 1967–, author
Do you think this is strange? / Aaron Cully Drake.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-927366-39-4 (html). ISBN 978-1-927366-40-0 (pdf)
Editor: Colin Thomas
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Proofreader: Grace Yaginuma
Design and cover image: Pete Kohut
Author photo: Cristie Hasselbach
Excerpts from “Comfortably Numb” written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Copyright © 1979 Roger Waters Overseas Ltd. in the US and Canada, and Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc. Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.