“Anyone who’s carrying around a stack of books like that must be a writer. Are you?” Those were some of my friend Tom’s first words to me. Years after that initial “leaning-over-at-WeWork” moment, I just turned the last page of his memoir, Perfect Village. Little did I know that, for me, the climax of the story would hide in the Acknowledgements.
“I’d like to recognize all my WeWork friends […] who created an amazing environment for me to write in each day.” And there it is: “Nik.” My name! How exciting! It’s a different kind of proud, but when it comes to the writer’s hierarchy of accomplishments, holding your own book in your hands and seeing your name in someone else’s both rank up there.
Growing up, neither of the two would ever have made my bingo card, yet here we are — and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Don’t worry about where each good deed will go once you finally write your memoir. Just keep going. You never know whose Acknowledgements you’ll make, and perhaps that’s the best motivation there is.
