Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I look at it as a communal birthday party, a celebration that all the people I love who started out the year together are still with me and for the most part doing fine. There have been years, of course, where not everybody made it to Thanksgiving, but the spirit of the day still made me grateful for having known them, having been the beneficiary of their love and generosity, having the opportunity to raise a glass to their memories and toast them for making my life richer in every sense.

I hope that the work I do, my writing, contributes moments of enjoyment to the people who read my books. I know that hope is at least partially validated by the fan letters I get and the reviews my books receive. I'm thankful for that, too.

I'm thankful to my family and friends for their support in helping me to work at a profession that is pretty much a crapshoot when it comes to making a living. But with the emergence of e-books, Kindles and other e-readers we're making a go of it.

I'm thankful that my muse continues to be generous and I'll have stories to write for years to come. I'm thankful that, with all the people who haven't read my work yet, I'll have all sorts of opportunities to build my audience.

I'm thankful that right now I can get back to work on a new novel.

I thank God, my family, my friends and my readers for all of the above.