I sometimes wonder how writers figure out their dedications–especially romance writers. In a genre with many 6+ book-a-year careers, a romance writer could thank everyone she(he)’s ever met. But after thanking your spouse, your parents, your pet, friends, don’t you run out of people? Probably not since one encounters special people all the time. My one author who’s written over 200 romances manages to craft poetic dedications every time. For my one book, the dedication was obvious. Even Sam said to me, “You’re dedicating it to me, right? If you don’t, that would be strange.” He was joking (sort of), but I wanted to find a way to name him in the dedication.
In high school, Sam was a master of hijinks. As the type who loves to run around and knock things down, he played on the football team. His freshman year, at an early practice, he put on his helmet wrong. The captain of the team said, “Come here, Cookie” and fixed it. The nickname stuck.
So that’s the story behind my dedication. Of course, today I found out that it’s slang for x-rated acts and body parts. Is nothing sacred?
Patience Bloom 
I was just thinking about this last night. Of course, I’m still a long way away from a dedication but one can dream! I have no idea who to choose to dedicate my first book to. My first thought was to my husband and then it just snowballed from there. Are page long dedications too much?? Lol Wrestling over who to honor in your book dedication is a nice problem to have though.
Dreaming is good! I hope you get the chance to get out your snowball dedication! I dreamed about that dedication for a long time and even wrote a few for different things that I wrote. My dread was always leaving someone out.
I didn’t have any problems coming up with the dedication (my beloved grandmother who always believed in and supported my writing died almost 3 years ago, and would have loved to see the books come out). But as a debut author, I have so many people to thank, I think my acknowledgements page is going to be longer than the book 🙂
I bet your grandmother was/is really proud of you, Deborah! What a difference a person can make.
Patience, that’s so true. I had a difficult time during my younger years (through my late 20’s, really) and a not-great relationship with my parents (which is thankfully much better now). Throughout all of that, my grandmother was the one person who always believed in me, and loved me just the way I was. She used to tell me, “I loved you from the moment you were born,” and it was clearly true. Even when I didn’t love myself or believe in myself, her love and belief were always there. And she was a shining example: a concert pianist in her youth, a master weaver later in life, and a life-long learner. She woke up every day excited to see what was next, and lived in her own house until she was 96 (my grandfather, the love of her life, died back in 1976). She lived to be 2 months shy of 100, and even at the end, when she couldn’t remember if she’d eaten or where she was, she always asked me, “So, do you still have five cats? And what are you writing now?” She died on Valentine’s Day, which was kind of fitting, since she was probably the person I loved the most in all the world. And I know she’s sitting wherever she decided to end up, and saying, “I TOLD YOU you could do it!”
I can totally see her. She sounds so wonderful!