Giving Thanks

It is so easy to look at our everyday lives and gripe and whine about how things go for us. We look at the negative. Bad or painful memories stick with us and remain so much more vivid than happy or peaceful memories do. We lapse into self-pity.

Well, not today.

It seems a shame that it takes a nationally declared holiday to remind us to look at all the good we have to be thankful for. Truly, wouldn’t our lives be so much happier if we made a conscious effort to focus on the good things, however small, every day of the year? Sure, it’s not easy; that’s why I wrote the word “effort.” I believe it would be worth it, and I plan to make that my life-long resolution.

(If you haven’t guessed yet, I am a resident of the United States of America, and I’m referring to Thanksgiving as the “nationally declared holiday.”)

Still, Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to share a list of things to be thankful for.

• I live in a country where I can worship (or not) as I see fit. Personally, I am Christian. I have several friends who are not. Some are Pagan, Wiccan, Agnostic, or Atheist. There may be some who are Jewish or Muslim in the mix, and I think at least one is Hindu, but I’m not sure, since no one has openly declared so. We are all free to follow our personal beliefs without fear of being forced by government into one set of beliefs/practices only.
• I have people I love and who love me in return. This includes blood family and chosen extended family who bear no genetic ties to me.
• I have gainful employment that provides me with a living wage and good benefits. Sure, I get tired and would love to be financially independent enough to not need to work; who wouldn’t? My job affords for me to support my household just on my income, and it allows me to take care of our medical needs, as well. It even gives me a retirement plan, something I’d never looked into previous to this job.
• I am physically able to perform my job. This was something I seriously worried about before I was hired for this job. It is a very physically demanding job; something else I’m thankful for. Had it been more sedentary, my health probably would have deteriorated terribly by now. (I’ve had my current job since February 2010.)
• I have had some of my books published, with more to come. A big thank you to Charlotte Holly and Denise Bartlett of Gypsy Shadow Publishing for that. Charlotte is my publisher, and Denise is my editor. They gave me a chance after nearly four years of trying first to find an agent, then trying to find a publisher that didn’t require an agent.
• My home town hosts at least 4 sci-fi conventions, which allowed me to create a network of friends and contacts in the publishing and fandom worlds that stretch far beyond my locality with minimal financial investment on my part. (I hope to be able to afford to attend some of the larger conventions in the Southeast region some day.)
• I’m thankful for Facebook and other social media. I found my publisher through FB. It also provides me a platform to promote my books and expand my network.
• My cats, even when they irritate the heck out of me.
• The fact I don’t have children. If I’d had children, I would be thankful for them. We never tried to have any, nor did we try to prevent any. It just never happened, and I’m fine with that.
• I’m especially thankful that my husband reminds me to take my diabetes meds. On non-work/non-routine days I easily forget.
• Last but not least, I am thankful that there are people out there who like what I write and want to read more of it.

I’m sure there are more things I could think of to list here, but I’d like to get this posted before midnight.

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and hope you accept the challenge to find something every day to be thankful for. 🙂

 

Turn and Burn

First, I would like to apologize for how late I am in making this post. It has been a very busy and SHORT weekend. That is the reason behind the title for this post. I’m coming off a fifty hour week on night shift and going back to day shift. That means I got off work at 4:45 am Saturday and have to be back to work at 6 am Monday. Fun.

We now have a very fragrant Douglas fir in the living room. The cats have investigated, but have not tried to climb it. We purposely picked one that had densely packed branches to keep them out of it. Pictures will be shared next weekend, after I’ve decorated it.

In writing news, I am past the halfway point of the manuscript for book six in the Waves of Darkness series, The Daedalus Enigma. Something I have hinted at as early as the first book in the series (Blood Curse) has fully manifested in this book (due for release fall 2016). Hell’s Breath Island is asserting itself as an entity truly independent of the Elder’s magic. This was NOT plotted out before hand, although the concept obviously has been in my subconscious for years now. I have found that several of my plot twists manifest this way. Thankfully, I’m not so much of a control freak that I can’t give my characters free reign to do their own thing. I just try to make sure I document it all.

That’s all I have for this week. Enjoy your holiday. Thursday and Friday will see me not leaving the house except for an emergency.

The Recent Insanity

Because of a recent Trojan infection of my computer that happened close to the same time I became active on this blog, I avoided posting for a while. The Trojan has been successfully removed. Hopefully, I don’t accidentally revisit whatever link carried it.

Some of the events that happened while I was off this site:

We set up our pre-lit tree to let our three youngest cats get over the initial “what’s this?” rowdiness. It only stayed up two days. Louie, one of my two six-year-old cats climbed into the tree for a little while to reestablish his nest shortly after we got it up. Wally, Louie’s littermate, sniffed it and walked away. Cricket and Tribble, two of our teen kittens, sniffed and walked around and under, but went no further during that time. Star, their littermate, would not come into the living room at all.

Once she finally got over her case of the “Nopes”, Cricket and Tribble decided they would climb in it. We expected this. It was part of the reason we set up the tree early. We wanted the novelty to wear off. A few hours later, Tribble miss-stepped and got her hind quarters hung in the lighting wires. She was removed unharmed but scared.

We didn’t want to risk one of them getting really hanged overnight, so we boxed the tree back up and have decided to get a real tree this year. Lights just wrapped around a tree will slide down under the weight of a small animal; the intertwining lighting wires on a pre-lit do not allow for that.

In other news:

Once I get the photoshopped pics back from a friend of mine, I will start building a character profiles page for this blog. I have kept the nagging of said friend light, since she offered to do the ‘shopping for free, but she’s had pictures of Viktor and Belladonna for a few MONTHS now. (pokepokepoke)

I am going to try to stick to posting here every weekend, with the occasional random post in between.

Black Venom is LIVE!

 Black Venom is now available in all ebook formats and can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, Omnilit, Allromance, and other etailers of fine ebooks. It can also be purchased as a .pdf file from http://gypsyshadow.com

Black Venom will be made available in print-on-demand late February-early March 2015.