I'd like to thank John Macleod who told me that the story I wrote in hospital would make a good novel. The first draft of EPT was written in longhand while I was recovering from surgery. During my week of home rest, before returning to work, I transcribed the story onto my roommate's Commodore Plus 4.
I'm not sure I should thank my roommate Amanda Bloss -- now Amanda Maloney -- for the use of her computer. The dang think almost ate the book. However, I do thank her for the gallons of red ink she expended on EPT's first edits. I should also thank her for her patience. There were times when I was less than grateful for her efforts. There were times when I was ready to grab that red pen and -- but I'm thankful now.
Getting back to the Commodore Plus 4 -- the computer that almost ate my book -- I must thank Janet Warkenton for scanning my one hard copy and converting it to a set of usable digital files.
Now, when I say usable, I am speaking loosely. The printout from the the dying computer was made on a dying dot-matrix printer on cheap fan-fold paper. The OCR program Janet used did its best, but there were large gaps, odd characters, and PAGE ## interspersed through the text every few paragraphs. I don't know if I would have ever had the patience to fix it up. Which brings me to Frances.
Frances (Peate) Nunn always thought El Paso Trail was the best thing I ever wrote and was bugging me to go back to it. I said I'd finish the book if she'd clean up the files. She did. So here we are.
As I continue the editing process, it's going up on TextNovel. If I get slow with updates, my niece (who wasn't born when this story started) cracks the whip. If you are reading El Paso Trail, you can thank her.
Finally I'd like to thank Nancy O'Neill (who is still an O'Neill) who wields the red pen these days.
End credits. Fade to black.