I’m grateful to be here at all. Since I fit into my dad’s size eleven shoe when I was born, that wasn’t a given.
I’m grateful for my birth family. I’m grateful that my grandmother told me stories, my father read me poetry and my brother introduced me to science fiction. I’m grateful my mom worked her fingers to the bone and managed things so that we survived despite their spending a small fortune on my health care when I was little. And I’m grateful that all of them resisted the impulse to drown me though heaven knows, considering the escapades I remember, it must have been hard at times. (Maybe I should also be grateful it was a bit of a walk to the nearest large-enough-to-pitch-a-kid-into river. Gave them time to cool off. Do you know how hard that was to arrange in Portugal?)
I’m grateful for my husband, and I’m grateful I found him at all. I bet whoever arranged such things placed us on different continents thinking that would be SAFER. Ah!
I’m grateful for his genius, his sense of humor, but most of all I’m grateful for his kindness. (I think he’s hot too, but that’s my business, right? All y’all practice discipline of the eyes NOW.)
I’m grateful my husband has never drowned me. (Great foresight on my part living in Colorado and away from reservoirs, uh?)
I’m grateful for my kids. Given six years of infertility before the first one, given that the second one was a complete and wonderful surprise, they’re both miracles. And I’m grateful they’re the sort of kids who can make me laugh even when I feel like crying, and that they’re responsible, caring and far more talented than I’ll ever be. (I think they’re cute too, but I’m their mom, so that’s suspect.)
I’m grateful that we bought Miranda-cat, the cornish rex princess to celebrate my first book sale, even if it seemed a bit like white-slavery. She and the younger boy are inseparable and it’s just cute to watch. And I’m grateful D’Artagnan cat walked in during a snow storm, even if at times it’s hard not to drown him when he pees out of place. And I’m grateful Euclid-cat needed rescue. And I’m grateful Havelock-cat came to us at the mini golf course, broken-tailed and filthy and… well. That he stayed. We love them all and they keep us connected to life.
I’m grateful for my friends, which connects with being grateful for technology and the internet, since I only met many of them due to the magic of the interwebs. They argue with me, proof read me, beta read me, make me write and generally keep me sane. And they make my life far less lonely than it would otherwise be. Oh, yeah, and they can’t drown me over the internet (ah ah.)
I’m grateful I’m the sort of person who makes up stories. They carried me through some very dark times.
I’m grateful that people like reading my stories — enough of them that I can make a living doing this.
I’m grateful for the ability to put my own stuff up. Even if I always sell traditionally ALSO, the freedom to do for self is not to be sneezed at.
I’m grateful for the donations on Witchfinder, because they show me it’s appreciated, even if it is going literally to fund kitty kibble because Euclid turns out to be allergic to affordable cat food (yeah, I know. So much for writing weekends.) But I’m grateful we found that out, because cat who pulls out all fur from legs and tummy looks funny.
And I’m grateful for all of you who comment on this blog. You keep me going when things seem hopeless and you’re too far away to drown me when I annoy you.
According To Hoyt 
Among the many things I’m gratiful about is the love of reading that my parents gave me.
It’s allowed me to “meet” interesting people both real and imaginary which includes the authors I’ve met on-line.
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I’m also grateful that your parents didn’t throw you into the river when you were a child. Because if you hadn’t survived childhood, grown up, moved to the United States, and began a succesful writing career, then you would never have met Amanda Green and held a writers workshop in the small town of Bedford, Texas. Which I attended in 2010 and which resulted in my starting to write again and wanting to publish my work, which I did this year for the first time. So, you see, I am very grateful to you Sarah, for helping me to start my own writing career. Thank You.
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Whatever strength we are to you, it is just a reflection of your strength.
To those of us in the wilderness with no published books, who struggle with writing, to have you constantly urging us on, telling us never to give up, you are our lodestar.
Thank You.
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“Discipline of the eyes”? I don’t THINK so! *I* am grateful to ANYBODY that wants to ogle me, regardless of what my wife says!
Seriously, though, I’m grateful for Sarah, and the whole different continents things was surely just because whomever’s responsible KNEW neither of us could resist the challenge. Also, I’m grateful that Sarah never stabbed me in my sleep on the many times I deserved it. :D
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(My kid was slightly less than 3 pounds when she was turned into a foil for scottish kings* — I have been known to say that I could never sell her to the fairies because they could not afford her, considering all that I went through to get her. :) )
I am very grateful to be able to read what you write!
* She was 2 months early, and it was a quasi-emergency c-section. All we need is a bunch of trees bundled onto off-road vehicles, and we’re set.
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Pish-tosh – it is sooooo easy to drown a person over the interwebs. Just hard to make it a lasting inundation.
I am grateful that, unlike the great mass of the human race, I live in a time and place where toilets flush, air is conditioned and heating poses scant risk of immolation, where 30 miles is a short trip, not a 2-day journey, where most foods are always “in season”, where there is always plenty to read and where the interwebs make it possible to have friends and acquaintances I’ve never seen nor heard even if we’ve argued many times.
And I am especially grateful for those whose inventiveness, ambition and greed carved the path from stone caves to brick condos. And a special nod or gratitude to friends who let the likes of me scribble on the walls of their blogs.
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Oh, I forgot that — I’m grateful (as a writer but PARTICULARLY as a reader) to be living in a time when “out of print” or “Must read on grotty paper that smells like chicken doings” because it’s only copy I can find is a concept fast going out of print. The great intellectual and imaginative banquet of the history of man is ours to reap. How can we NOT be thankful?
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