It is the week of Thanksgiving and you know what that means . . . .

My roommate is signing Christmas music.

Christmas decorations are popping up at my office building.

Pictures of Santa and snowmen are appearing all over my social media accounts.

. . . Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday and each year I get more and more upset that the big guy in the red suit and crass commercialism is overrunning my favorite day.  I’m surprised the media remembers that there is such a holiday as Thanksgiving since all they seem to be able to talk about is Black Friday.  Let’s obscure the day of appreciation for one of overindulgence and excessive spending!  Gooooo Deals!

I guess the meaning of Thanksgiving doesn’t really fit into an easy box.  There’s no overarching religious meaning.  There’s no presents.  There’s no mascot that you can trot out to spew soundbites.

Thanksgiving is about coming together.  At a time when our world is seeing bigger divides, spurned by terror and racism and fear, it would help us to remember the meaning behind it.  Of the Pilgrims and the Indians coming together in communion and friendship to share a feast together.  Of looking beyond what’s different to what’s the same.  To appreciating the things in life we can have in abundance – health, hope, happiness.

To me, Thanksgiving is about warm smiles surrounding a warm meal, food with family and friends, togetherness along with the turkey.  Oh, and pumpkin pie – I Love pumpkin pie.  But it’s not about running through stores to buy things I don’t need, making people work on a national holiday.  It’s not about waiting in line to be the first into Walmart at midnight.  If this is what your holiday is about, okay – but I hope you take a moment to realize everything you have to be thankful for.

Things I am thankful for:

• That Thanksgiving dinner is (mostly) gluten free
• That I have a roof over my head and a warm bed
• That I get to see my family and nephews
• That my brother does the best impersonation of a turkey ever (seriously, he once did it in front of a turkey and they almost brawled)
• That there is always extra space at the table for whoever needs a seat
• That I have a job and a car to get me there
• That I have never know the pain of being hungry or cold
• That people love me, and I know it
• That I have a passion and the audacity to pursue it
• That the world can once again be a warm and forgiving place, if we all remember what it means to be human
• That I am alive

So, when you see the man with the Ho Ho Ho’s this week, politely smile at him if you must but remind him, he has a few more days to wait before we’ll pay attention to him.  It’s Turkey time.

Oh, and for your enjoyment, my brother’s Turkey impression.  Happy Thanksgiving. 🙂

Let’s admit to some fear.

I just released my third book, Pucker Up.  This book was a challenge for me for so many reasons.

• It’s about a couple that meet again after ten years apart – I’ve never written something with so much history before.
• My main female character, Faith West, is a songwriter so I had to write song lyrics. For multiple songs.  Writing song lyrics is hard.
• The main couple from RomCon, Madison Duncan and Trevor Clark, come to visit. I wanted them there but I didn’t want them to steal the show (I don’t think they did but the teenagers *may* have – oops).
• You know what’s harder than writing song lyrics? Writing a concert where people SING them.  And not just one person, a whole girl group (think the Spice Girls) with choreography and banter.  How do you keep a concert interesting when no one can hear the singing . . . ?

But the biggest challenge had nothing to do with the words on the page.  I eventually managed all of those things and in an interesting way if I do say so myself.  The biggest part was living up to the past.

A little over a year ago I released Royally Screwed.  A lot of people read it and a lot of people reviewed it – and to this day I still have no idea how that happened.  I have a few theories – my title kicked ass, my cover was cool, the royal romance genre is much more in demand than I realized – but when you’re an indie author without access to focus groups, research, or even just stats that Amazon doesn’t share, theories is all you ever have.

I was so worried that Pucker Up would be released and no one would buy it; so much so that some days I couldn’t write at all.  Book sales should be a blessing not a curse, I’d think as I cursed them.  As an author, especially an indie one, control is what I crave.  I want to have the authority to make decisions and I want to have the evidence to make good ones.  Yet I became so worried I didn’t make any at all.

Pucker Up was released on October 29^th with very little fanfare because that’s what I’d done last time.  And all of my fears about no one buying it came true.

You want to know why?  Because I was so worried that no one would buy it, I barely tried to promote it.  What if the writing wasn’t as good as the last one?  What if it actually sucks (it doesn’t, I promise).  What if  . . . what if . . . what if I don’t actually know what I’m doing?!

. . . Ah, there it is.  The truth.  I have no freaking clue what I’m doing.

I’m fumbling alone like I know but I don’t have any of the answers.

Guess what?  Not having the answers is okay.  At least it is now, only three years and three books in; I’m allowed to not have all the answers.  I’m pretty sure half the time I’m not even asking the right questions.  I need to stop comparing my novice marketing skills to those over there in the advanced class; especially not to those professionals over in the publishing houses.

I am doing things wrong.  Most of the time I’m not even sitting at the right table.

So I bought some books (okay, so I bought A LOT of books) that are sitting on my nightstand waiting to be read.  And I’m reading blogs and forums with advice on how to do this.  And I’m weighing the pros and cons of hiring someone to do this that’s better at it than me.  And I’m writing so the next book can have a better start than this one did.

The only way I lose is if I quit.

And hey, people are still reading Royally Screwed and reviewing it a year later.  That has to count for something.

I have weird dreams.

That’s probably something a lot of people can say.

Oh look, there’s Big Bird.  How did I get to work with flippers?  Yes, I would like a salad made out of candy canes.

Those aren’t the kind of weird dreams I mean.   I dream fantasy plots that come out of nowhere.  Mash-up episodes of television shows that don’t really belong together (Veronica Mars and The Nanny – bring it on).  Epic fight scenes over dropped peanut butter sandwiches.

This happens to me most often when I’m not writing when I’m awake – I’m sick, I’m busy, I’m uninspired.  I think it’s my brain’s way of saying “Hey You, Get Back Into Gear. “  It’s like a work assignment.  Didn’t think the muse was calling – let’s try that again, shall we?

Last night was one of those dreams  . . .

A pirate ship.  A leggy redhead who tells everyone she’s a mermaid, and thinks wearing a pair of scandalous short shorts is the way to prove it.  A mysterious man who follows her around, demanding she stop telling people she’s a creature of the sea.  And a swashbuckling sword fight when he breaks into her hotel room.

Proposed Title: Bootleg

I went to the hairdresser today and I walked out of there feeling bad ass.  I got my hair darkened and purple streaks put in (not the teenage rebellion purple, grown-up I have to work in a conservative office purple).  I don’t go to these places because I have a righteous indignation against my natural hair color or inability to use a hair dryer (okay, that last one might be closer to the truth than I’d care to admit).

I go because walking out of there makes me feel like a confident woman who can conquer the world.  Look at me go take Target by storm!  Watch the compliments roll in!  Pay attention to my badassery as I live my life!  It’s kind of like editing – hair dye helps me realize the awesomeness of me.

As I sit here finishing up the last few chapters of my novel and preparing to send the words off for editing, I’m like a mother watching her baby get on the school bus for the first time.  Will they be liked?  Will they be ridiculed?  Have I prepared them well enough for this big step?  What shape am I going to find them in later?

But editing isn’t the adversary.  We aren’t sparring with an enemy when we get critiques back, simply (hopefully) impartial advice.  They only want to help us shine.  Help the words and characters convey their own confident badassery.  That’s always the goal – to help the words go out into the world and speak for themselves.  When it’s all over, we can’t speak for them.

And maybe they might trim your ends, untangle your modifiers, straighten out your verbs.  Shampoo away the extraneous characters and condition those plot holes.  Take some scissors to that purple prose.  You may worry about it and disagree over it (you should have heard what my mother said when I told her my hair was now partially purple – even though it’s her favorite color, hair is not where it belongs).  But just remember, a trip to the stylist is not a judgement on you.

Sometimes professionals can help us be strong, teach us how to be confident.

In books, as in life, some people just demand purple hair.