Happy Monday everyone! Today on the porch at BelleView, Thanksgiving is starting just a little bit early. But it’s never really too early for Thanksgiving, is it?
Thanksgiving deserves a month of its own, don’t you think? These days, it’s easy to get so busy with the rush of life that we roll right through this season of gratitudes. Is it my imagination, or does Christmas seem to come a little earlier each year? Thanksgiving hasn’t even had its day yet, and Santa has already arrived in Dallas to oversee the set up of the giant downtown tree. He even made the noon news. People are camped out at Walmart stores all over the nation, living in tents, waiting to usher in the Christmas shopping season by participating in the Black Friday melee.
But… wait a minute… what about Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown?
This morning in service, our preacher reminded us of a billboard one of the churches had up a couple months ago. It said, What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you gave thanks for Today? More than once, I’ve wished I’d taken a photo of that sign and framed it for my refrigerator. What a great reminder. What a question to contemplate.
So with that reminder in my head, I thought I’d move beyond the obvious, today and have a little Writer’s Thanksgiving. Of course I’m thankful for my family, my health, my neighbors, my friends, my country, my freedom, my church, my faith. But there’s something else I’m thankful for–something I don’t always remember to mention. I am thankful for my job.
Here are a few blessings, counted one by one, in A Writers Thanksgiving:
1. A special teacher. I’m thankful that Mrs. Krackhardt, in the first grade, took the time to notice a shy little transfer student writing a story during indoor recess because she was too afraid to try to meet anybody in the class. That one moment made all the difference. Mrs. Krackhardt told me I was a wonderful writer, and I believed it.
2. A wild childhood. I’m thankful that I had a wild childhood — not in a bad way. I had the kind of childhood in which we went out the door in the morning, and as long as we were home by the time the street lights came on, nobody worried about us. We invented a million lives along the banks of Hakey Creek and in the patch of woods around Peaceful Pond. Nobody had to tell us kids how to make up a story. We just did it naturally. We discovered all the treasures imagination has to offer. I fell in love with the magic of living within a story.
3. Good books. I’m thankful I was always surrounded by books. When we weren’t running wild during those childhood years — when it was too rainy, or too cold, or we were grounded for not making it home before the street lights came on, there were books. I’m thankful that my parents encouraged a love of reading. Over the years, books have taught me, inspired me, encouraged me, and challenged me to work hard to tell the very best story I can.
4. A practical college degree. I’m thankful that my parents insisted I get a college degree, which, I will confess, I never used all that much. But I always knew that if this fiction writing thing didn’t work out, I was a qualified technical writer, and someone, somewhere would hire me, thereby assuring that I would not end up someday living in my parents’ basement.
5. Stories, and more stories, and more stories. I am constantly amazed by the way stories are birthed in the mind and how they grow through the hours behind a keyboard. I love the unexpected times when pure magic happens, but the old saying is true. It’s part inspiration and part perspiration. The percentages change day by day. It’s on the perspiration days that you find out how badly you want to get all the way to the end of the trail, and shake the hand your latest imaginary friend, and say “Good job. Now go forth and have a great life. The End.”
6. Friends and writer friends. One of the most fantastic things about creating imaginary friends and sending them off into the world, is that they come home trailing real people behind them. Over the years, I’ve been blessed with some amazing friends through writing. A few of them share the porch with me right here on Southern BelleView. Others, I share long-distance lunches and research trips with — like our favorite graphics girl, Teresa Loman (she made the cute little Christmas moose at the top of this post, by the way). We wouldn’t have met if it hadn’t been for books. So many special friendships have started that way.
7. Publishers. I’m so thankful for the amazing people who turn pages of writer-scratch into books and then help those books find their way into reader’s hands. The publishing world can be complicated to navigate, and sometimes frustrating, but I have been blessed to have learned from and worked with some of the brightest, most devoted book people in the business. Their jobs are often long, difficult, and thankless. They do it because they have a genuine love of story. God bless them for realizing the potential of stories to change the world.
8. The symphony factor. I am thankful for the surprising ways in which stories travel into the world. I never know where a book will end up, or what hands it will fall into, or what it will mean to the person who finds it. Reading is like a symphony. The writer’s words are a singular melody. The conductor in the reader’s brain combines that melody with the reader’s life experiences, and the story becomes a symphony that’s unique to each reader. Somehow, a connection is formed. The most amazing moments are the ones when a reader sends you a letter from across town, or across the country, or all the way across the world. Those letters mean more than I can ever say.
So that’s my Writer’s Thanksgiving. Wherever this week finds you, I hope this finds you surrounded by great stories. Be sure, while you’re gathering over the turkey and dressing, to share some of your own family stories around the table. If you’re looking for a way to get the conversation started and you haven’t printed off the series of conversation starter place cards that we had here on Bellevue last month, click here to find them.
Along with your table and cup this holiday, may your mind and spirit overfloweth, as well. Happy Thanksgiving!
Lisa
Blue Moon Bay was named One of BOOKLIST’S 10 Must Reads Of 2012!
Click here to read the first Chapter!
