I guess a Mourning Moon is the last full moon before the winter solstice. We’ve had some awesome moons lately, moons with rockstar names like the “Blood Moon,” in September, and “The Supermoon,” in October. The Mourning Moon on the eve of Thanksgiving ushers in a time of cleansing and making ready for winter. In some traditions, it’s a time for letting go of the bad habits and negativity we’re carrying around, and maybe it’s not a moment too soon, huh? Because things have been harsh lately. Things have been painful. On the news, people are fighting and killing and dying and in our own circle, folks have been disillusioned by plagiarists and disappointed in those they thought were their friends.

For me, when the Mourning Moon disaappears, it’s time to let the emotional tide settle too. It’s time to remember everything we’ve still got going for us.

It’s a fact. Complex things happen when people get together to create anything. Whether it’s books or the internet or friendship or family. People are human. Some can be self-serving. They lie. They manipulate. They steal. There are complex reasons for why people do the terrible things they do, whether it’s on an incomprehensible international scale, like the attacks on Paris, or the local scale, like yet another unforgivable social injustice, or in a microcosm like the community of writers and readers we belong to.

From all the negativity on the news and in our own community, it would be easy to make the case that people are kind of shitty and we should all just hide in our beds and wait for the Zombie apocalypse to sort things out.

I won’t be doing that, though, because I think people are just…people. I’m not here to judge anyone. God forbid. Wow. I’ve made my whole life about being an object lesson, not a role model.

And I’m only bringing any of this up because I am thankful for all the people I work with and those people who have shown me kindness in the writerly community and elsewhere in my life.

It’s thanksgiving, and I’m grateful for so many things, I thought I’d list them here:

• I’m so thankful for my friends, authors and readers alike, who are too many to name.
• I’m thankful for my publishers, (the now defunct) Aspen Mountain Press, Loose Id, MLR Press, Samhain, Carina, Torquere, Berkley InterMix, and Riptide.
• I love my agent, Deidre Knight, who is f*cking awesome (and hopefully I tell her that enough). I love all the editors I’ve worked with in the past, and those I’m working on projects with now: Tera Cuskadin, Sarah Lyons, Cindy Hwang and Kristine Schwartz.
• I’m grateful for readers and reviewers, without whom I’d be out of a job.
• I’m grateful to all my teachers, mentors, and coaches: Margie Lawson, Lou Nelson, Michael Phillips, Eric Maisel, and John Adamus and everyone from every panel at every conference at RT and RWA and every blogger, Chuck Wendig, Morgan Hawke, Janet Reid… there are simply too many people to name.
• I’m grateful for William, my author assistant, and those people who have done PR work for me, Viviana Izzo and Dawn Roberto.
• I’m so grateful for my AWESOME family, all of whom have put up with my nonsense forever. I LOVE them so much and I’m so lucky to have them.
• I’m grateful that when I’ve needed help and I’ve been able to reach out for it, it has been there in the form of church or family or kind strangers.
• I’m grateful that help finds me when I don’t see I need it (but obviously, I do.)
• I’m grateful each and every time I can be the “kind stranger” who helps someone else.
• I’m grateful I live in America, for all it’s faults, I love the land and the people living here.
• I’m grateful for Thanksgiving, because it’s the perfect time to quantify and reiterate all the things I have to be thankful for.
• I love the folks at Dickey’s Barbecue who fry my turkey–YES I SAID IT, my turkey is FRIED, health bitches. Whatcha going to do about it? It’s ONE DAY out of a whole year. Honestly. *rolls eyes*
• And finally, I’m grateful for creamed corn, orange cranberry relish and my mother’s stuffing balls.

Happy Thanksgiving!*

Bright blessings for a happy–not terribly unhealthy–holiday season and a fresh new start next year.

*Please make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter, (you can do that up there at the top of my site) so that when I decide to do some sort of last-minute but wholly awesome holiday newsletter-subscriber-only contest you’re part of the gang!