Things I'm thankful for as a writer

In honor of this day when we are thankful for all the great things in our life, I though that it might be appropriate to list the things I'm most thankful for in my writing life. 

8. Websites with story inspiring photos. Like photos of crazy abandoned places (thanks, Karen for sharing on facebook!), abandoned water slide parks particularly, or Wikimedia's photo contests of the year.

2nd place in last year's contest, a coronal mass ejection.  Photo from flicker, courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license. 

7.  Hair washing time, because that's seriously when I come up with my best ideas. The downside of this is that sometimes I think too intently when I get excited . As a result, in the past month I have 1). Shampooed my hair after conditioning; 2). Put more shampoo in my hair when there was already some in there.

Shortly after the last incident, I took the Nair bottle and moved it out of the shower.

  

6. All the writing tips on the internet! Here are some of my favorites:

• Dialogue Clinic
• Filter Words (I use this all the time! So true, IMO, that "I hear the wind whistle through the hall" is inferior to "The wind whistled through the hall")
• Joss Whedon's Top Ten Writing Tips
• Magic Comparison Chart! (click to enlarge)

5. Chocolate with caramel inside. Not the kind that's all hard and gets stuck in your teeth, or that super sugary kind that has a weird grainy texture. I'm talking about the nice, almost liquidy kind, particularly if it's smoky caramel. Yeah, that stuff. I am very thankful for that.

4. Tea. I'm a night writer, so coffee is not my writing drink of choice. Or wine. Wine puts me to sleep. But tea is hot and delicious. I especially love to have a huge cup of sweet mint tea when I'm writing. Or toasted rice green tea. It smells exactly like toasted rice, but it has a nice, light, almost fresh flavor 

3. My cats, for providing leg warmth, snuggles, and the occasional reminder that I should get off the computer and do something in the real world (preferably playing with them, in their opinion).

Kaylee and Sir Samuel 

2. My laptop. I do not understand how anyone ever wrote by hand. How else would I jump back and forth between chapters, and delete whole sections in a blink? I mean, I've tried to write longhand before, and I went insane with all the crossing out and not being able to move words around with ease. Writing things out by hand is sometimes more satisfying, but too much work overall. 

1. My friends, family, and Prosers, and fellow co-writers, who are always there when I need inspiration and encouragement. Who cheer me on, who read my stories for me and ... who give me critiques and advice and tell me gently when my ideas are just a little bit too silly. And whose own fantastic writing always inspires me to strive to be better. Don't know what I'd do without you all.