Giving Thanks: What it’s All About and Writer Friends I’m Thanking!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers, fellow writers, book lovers, friends. So many of you make my day so much brighter and this weekend, I give thanks to you! I suppose to me it doesn’t really matter if you live in America or not, we all have something to celebrate with this holiday: coming together, working together through differences, and being thankful for what we have, especially when many people might not have as much as us. That is a world-wide sentiment, is it not?

Of course, most know (or at least I hope!) that the pilgrims came across the sea on the Mayflower from Britain. If you didn’t, I suggest watching Snoopy in his Mayflower cartoon at the very least!  As I see it, several kind First Peoples helped the Pilgrims through a time that they might otherwise not have lived through. Squanto (who had quite the story of being kidnapped to Spain, escaping to Britain, and then back to North America…whew) taught them to plant corn and fertilize with fish, and others taught them how to clear and build. It was a peaceful time in history that is far from highlighted. A year later, as the crops grew to be abundant and life of a settlement had begun, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans feasted together, giving thanks for what nature and the land supplied in order tfor them to survive. Wha-la! Thanksgiving!

‘The First Thanksgiving’ Painting Source: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

We can all take so many lessons from this, can we not? How extending a hand is sometimes still advantageous (and worth it) as there are still people who truly will be thankful (look at how hundreds of years later we are still celebrating the Native American kindness) or how we can find a peaceful way to get along and work beside people who are different from us whether that be race, religion, beliefs, or what not.  It’s all what is in your hearts, so stop judging and start living! Live in thanks, not in fear!

I hope this Thanksgiving that you not only give thanks for those people closest to you, but for the rest of the people all over the world. For people who are making a difference by forging alliances with those different from us so that one day seeds will be planted and the fruit of kindness will grow further into the world. Where love for others in not only their similarities but in their differences will be had and we will all sit at one big world table learning about each other and GIVING THANKS that we have meals on our tables when so many others do not.

Blessings to you and yours on this day. It’s why it’s one of my most favorite holidays. To quote my 10 year old daughter, “Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is the day I get to be thankful for all I have.” That blew me away….!! Which is true as it reminds us, amid food and football and games, during the Christmas tree decorating or the fervent shopping, to remember how good most of us have it compared to many others who will spend the holidays freezing in gloves with holes on the street, begging for a piece of turkey bone from the trash.

As far as books and writing goes, I am so very thankful for so many like-minded people in my life. You all are the source of my best smiles and days (outside of my children) and my inspiration. I love to write and to read and I am so happy that there are so many of us to share our joys in with out there in the online world. I appreciate my readers of this blog and hope you’ll grow that with me this next year. I appreciate the authors who contact me and send me books for review and who offer to do posts and take on my lengthy interviews. It is my complete pleasure to review what I can as I can. You are mostly all so patient and understanding about my time-table and my life.

I appreciate those authors who want my thoughts on a first glimpse of their books, those who hire me to do work for them, and those that I brainstorm for and with. It is the best part of my life, outside of writing my own stuff and being a mom. I am passionate for you to succeed each and every day.

I have complete gratitude for my writer friends who encourage and motivate me each day, even if it is something they don’t realize they do, and how much they truly mean to me. To my friend circle of Hunter Shea and Kevin Sheehan, W.D. Gagliani, Craig Schaeffer (Jonathan Janz), Brian Moreland, Kristopher Rufty, Ronald Malfi, Russell James, David Berenstein, Sandy Shelonchik, and Frazer Lee…I couldn’t get through a week without your amazing personalities. Thanks to many of you for being there for me in so many ways with my crazy life, my intense personality, and for encouraging my writing (both pointedly through emails and by example of what you do). Never would I have though I’d write anything near horror (just had the YA and history going) but then you all landed in my lap (not literally..lol). Hugs to Keith Rommel for his friendship and trust. Thanks further to David Searls and John Everson for always making me laugh or making me hungry and to Jonathan Moore, for his ability to remind me how to find calm in order to write. And to Glenn Rolfe for always writing WAAAAAAY too much so that I pound my head wondering if I can keep up. Great authors, great writers, great people. SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU!

I love my historical author friends who lead by example as well and especially those women who I admire like Nancy Bilyeau, Sherry Jones, Jennie Fields, Eva Stachniak, Cathy Buchanan, Ania Szado, D.J. Niko, Jennifer Epstein. For making me laugh and giving me so much to enjoy is Sophie Perinot, Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Stephanie Thornton, Kris Waldherr, Susanna Calkins.  For Melika Lux and her never ending friendship and chats! To Christopher Gortner and David Blixt for their passion and lively Facebook posts. To Amy Bruno, owner of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, for her organizational skills, friendly emails, and making it easy to feature authors here on my blog.  There are too many wonderful historical writers to name in this post and they all make me want to learn more, be more, write more, and even better, research more. I would be eternally grateful to one day finish my historical novel and be published beside them.

To Dandi Mackall, for first encouraging me to continue my quest to write novels and teach me how to learn from my surroundings. For igniting my spark during college and for continually impressing me with her kindness and her writing. To Tracy Higley for her exotic historical adventures, trust in me to read her novels, and her pursuit of spirituality which makes me think.

To lovely friends Matthew Turner and Linn Halton who makes me transcend beyond every day life and death with their thoughts and insights. And I am so thankful for so many British authors who truly give me emotional connections to books and write the best new adult, mystery, and historicals out there.

I am GRATEFUL for the talent of writing I’ve had my whole life. When I thought I’d lost it, when I got too busy with my former job and life, when I was told I couldn’t write, I didn’t listen. I kept fighting to write because you know what? I CAN. And I am THANKFUL. So very thankful to be free through my writing. The more I read, the more my muses swirl around me–the more I write, the more they whisper.

This Thanksgiving Season, be thankful for your talents, your support circles, your writing friends, the authors you like, and for the ability to read, and if you write, to write!

Eat lots of pumpkin pie and enjoy a good book or do some writing over the weekend!

GRATEFUL for YOU! Happy Thanksgiving!