Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I don’t actually subscribe to the notion that one should think about the positive only once a year. Experts would probably recommend we do it more often than that, but as my Risky friends and our more frequent visitors know, I’m one to stress and obsess and worry about everything. So once year seems a lot!

However, I have a blog post to do, so I will force myself to think on the bright side. It is probably good for me. 🙂

Here they are, in no particular order, just 10 of the many things I have to be thankful for.

1. That I’m in a good marriage which has only gotten better over 18 years.

2. That I have healthy and happy children who actually enjoy scrambled egg dinners when I’m too busy writing to prepare anything fancier.

3. That there’s a DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) within two hours of where I live. (Sometime after I turned forty a latent shoe gene kicked in.)

4. That Jane Austen lived and wrote her stories. Ditto for Georgette Heyer and every modern romance writer whose stories I treasure.

5. That I have seen 6 of my own stories reach publication.

6. That I have already written over 30,000 words during this year’s National Novel Writing Month. See the nifty bar graph on the Nano website!

7. That the processes for creating wine and real ale were invented. (How could one celebrate or deal with relatives over the holidays without them?)

8. That I have a couple of critique partners whom I can trust to give me their honest, intelligent opinions of my stories and who believe in me even when I don’t.

9. That chocolate was invented. (This picture is of The Chocolate Girl, by Jean-Etienne Liotard, c.1743-45.)

10. That I have found such good and talented friends in this Risky Regency community of ours. (Sorry, can’t help getting just a little gushy here.)

So what are you thankful for?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com