My book is one day old today. I have a newborn. And yes, the work, oh Lord, the work, but I get to sleep in one long six-hour chunk. My human newborn babies never let me sleep that long.

The Never Prayer has a page for acknowledgements, but of course I couldn’t get everyone in there. I got some, but not all.

So this post, on Heavenly Friday, is for the angels who helped me get a book published, and in this hard, old world, getting a book published, any book, is a miracle. And it takes angels to git ‘r done.

First off, since I love angels who are atheists, I have to thank my publicist, Bree Ervin. She had faith in the book, and she had faith in me, and all along, I thought she was my Plan B for publicity. Nope, she is Plan A. Ain’t got no other plan but her.

I thanked Chris Devlin in the acknowledgements, but I gotta thank her again. Chris pulled double-duty, first as my inspiration to query, then as my loyal, dogged, Girl Friday who helped me with the day-to-day madness of trying to birth a book. She is part angel, part mid-wife, all woman. Yes, she gets dual thanks because she did twice the work.

My daughters, Asha and Ella. They were angels of death. But in a good way. They made me die to my old self. They took away all my time so I had to prioritize. I couldn’t lay around watching bad movies (Curly Sue) any more. Fatherhood carved away all of the distractions and focused me, tempered me like steel. Angels are messengers from God and my daughters brought the message of who I really am.

Becky Hodgkins. I had not queried a single agent and I had been writing for ten years, and I told Becky I was going to give up. And she said words that were sent by God. Hard words. Another angel of death. “Aaron, don’t quit without trying.” ‘Trying’ in the writing business means writing and marketing and seeking publication for a lifetime. Becky laid down a life sentence. But the words of God are not supposed to be easy. They are supposed to be true. And her words rang with Divine truth.

The next angels that helped me, well, these angels meet in bars on Tuesday nights and are more devils than angels, really. And yet, they have guided me, those devils. Jeanne C. Stein, Mario Acevedo, Warren Hammond, Tamra Monahan, Terry Wright, Tom and Margie Lawson – thanks for the devilish advice delivered on the breath of angels.

Lastly, the archangel in my life, my wife Laura. Again, I was going to give up, and she said more words ordained by God. She told me I lived most of my life in fantasy. And that writing, getting published, was a very real thing, the most real thing I could do. Yes, it would be scary. Yes, it would be hard. But it would be real.

Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Thanks Laura. And thank you to all of my angels out there.