Giving thanks, 2011 edition

It's time to remember what we are thankful for, and even though it's been (another) tough year, I have plenty.

Viable Paradise -- I am thankful for the opportunity I had to become part of the VP community, which is full of wonderful writers who inspire and intimidate me with their abilities.

Beta Readers -- you know who you are. Thank you so much. I hope I've been able to help you too.

Fellow Bloggers -- a 24-7 writers' chat room that has given me lots to think about and caused my to-read pile to mushroom.

www.paperbackswap.com -- for helping me with the above problem. I know e-readers are the wave of the future... but this is one un-arguable advantage of dead tree copies.

Apologies to these folks, but I wanted an approximation of
the melodramatic foolishness going on in my head.

My characters -- that crowd of semi-independent personalities knocking around in my head, thank you for your suffering and your triumphs, for surprising me by turning into action heroes when needed (still LOLing about that, Tanner) and for telling me things I needed to hear even when I didn't want to.

And in my real-life existence, I am grateful to still have a roof over my head and food on the table in these difficult times. I will not go into much detail about that, though -- my real life is not exactly welcome here.

Happy Thanksgiving!