Chapter 8 - Dedication
In late 2018, I spent one hundred hours editing, arranging, typesetting pages, and designing a cover for Foreign Voices. I worked in my bedroom on a battered laptop so small I had to bring it right in front of my face to see the changes. All of the stories I included had appeared in magazines and anthologies, so I bundled them together and prepared to self-publish.
Christmas was coming.
Surely, all my friends, colleagues, and digital stalkers would want to buy my first book as a present. I'd be signing copies left and right.
It’s a lot to learn, self-publishing — compiling front and back matter, understanding Amazon’s ranking systems, keywords, eBook deals, reviews, royalties. You begin to realize why most publishing houses dedicate entire teams to book launches. But my team was just me, so, for about three weeks, I blasted through it all. Late nights, endless how-tos and instructional videos, and lots of trial and error.
Christmas didn’t really matter.
The more pressing deadline was that my father was dying of cancer the next room over.
I’d flown back to be there at the end.
To help.
The days went, and we lost all sense of time. The only way to track it was by how thin he got.
He never did talk much, my dad. Nearly 30 years in the navy.
He never even acknowledged that he was dying. Each day was just a mission with a new difficulty.
We watched quiz shows together, reminisced about our climbing trips, and looked through a coffee table book of military weaponry. Mostly, I buried myself in my own book project.
Two weeks before he passed, a proof copy arrived in the mail.
I went straight to my father’s bed and showed him, directing him to page 7.
I guess, like him, I wasn’t used to talking. There was no pre-prepared speech thanking him for being my dad. For the maths tutoring. For standing on the touchline. For leading the way up countless mountains.
When he turned to the page and saw the words, he froze. I watched him try and swallow a fist-sized lump in his throat.
When we locked eyes, we both said nothing.
We just sat there and listened to the echo of those three words.
“For my father”
Christopher Roy Charter
1950—2018
(Pictured in Scotland, 2007).
#unphiltered
In late 2018, I spent one hundred hours editing, arranging, typesetting pages, and designing a cover for Foreign Voices. I worked in my bedroom on a battered laptop so small I had to bring it right in front of my face to see the changes. All of the stories I included had appeared in magazines and anthologies, so I bundled them together and prepared to self-publish.
Christmas was coming.
Surely, all my friends, colleagues, and digital stalkers would want to buy my first book as a present. I'd be signing copies left and right.
It’s a lot to learn, self-publishing — compiling front and back matter, understanding Amazon’s ranking systems, keywords, eBook deals, reviews, royalties. You begin to realize why most publishing houses dedicate entire teams to book launches. But my team was just me, so, for about three weeks, I blasted through it all. Late nights, endless how-tos and instructional videos, and lots of trial and error.
Christmas didn’t really matter.
The more pressing deadline was that my father was dying of cancer the next room over.
I’d flown back to be there at the end.
To help.
The days went, and we lost all sense of time. The only way to track it was by how thin he got.
He never did talk much, my dad. Nearly 30 years in the navy.
He never even acknowledged that he was dying. Each day was just a mission with a new difficulty.
We watched quiz shows together, reminisced about our climbing trips, and looked through a coffee table book of military weaponry. Mostly, I buried myself in my own book project.
Two weeks before he passed, a proof copy arrived in the mail.
I went straight to my father’s bed and showed him, directing him to page 7.
I guess, like him, I wasn’t used to talking. There was no pre-prepared speech thanking him for being my dad. For the maths tutoring. For standing on the touchline. For leading the way up countless mountains.
When he turned to the page and saw the words, he froze. I watched him try and swallow a fist-sized lump in his throat.
When we locked eyes, we both said nothing.
We just sat there and listened to the echo of those three words.
“For my father”
Christopher Roy Charter
1950—2018
(Pictured in Scotland, 2007).
#unphiltered