Back to Part SixHeaders in the
Master post.( Part Seven )A/N and Thank You's: This story is sort of like the marriage of two of my most favorite things: history and romance. It holds a special place in my heart as being probably the only story I've ever written that I didn't at some point (metaphorically) toss into the garbage can while screaming "God, I hate it!" It's my favorite of anything I've ever written, and I think it's probably some of my best work to date.
I got the idea for it back late last winter, or early this past spring, when one of my Workday Email Posse (hee) linked me to an article about a Russian couple who were married at the beginning of WWII and then got separated a few days later -- and she believe he was dead, and he couldn't find her, and they ended up apart for sixty years. When they found each other again, they said it was like those years hadn't ever happened; they were just as in love as they'd been. The big ol' sap in me went "AWWW!" and then I started thinking about a Sam and Dean version of that. :)
I owe huge thank you's to a lot of people:
thenyxie,
cormallen and
nu_breed for hand-holding and audiencing, and just in general being there. To
rivers_bend and
leighm for beta-under-pressure (seriously--I sent the story to them like, Monday night, and the reworked ending last night), as well as hand-holding, and being there. Awesomeness all around :) Also thank you to my flist at large for helping me find links, and information, and putting up with my 10938140891 questions and word-count updates. (I feel like I should apologize for those, because normally? I could care less what the word count is. But y'all, I wrote SO MUCH, it just blew me away!) I also want to say, though he'll never (I hope!) see this, thank you to Matthew. He fetched tissues and cool drinks for me when I worked myself into sobbing while writing, and just in general encouraged me. ("Are you writing? Shouldn't you be writing? You're not done yet are you? How many more words until you're done?" - the kid makes a great nag.)
Thank you's need to go also to
wendy and
audrarose for coordinating all of this, and making it a very awesome experience. *hugs you*
Finally, many, many thanks to
mkitty3, for the incredibly fabulous artwork she did for this story. She brought it to life for me.
I have a couple of footnotes/credit things, because I am deathly afeared of ever being accused of plagiarism. So, for Sam's commencement speech, I got the core of it from here:
http://www.dominik.net/thoughts/valedictorian-speech.php3 and of course the "A day which will live in infamy" speech belongs to FKR and his speechwriters.
I really hope you've enjoyed reading this story. I loved writing it, and I'm thrilled to get to share it with y'all. Thank you :)