What I am Most Grateful for this Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone reading this today. And if you’re reading this afterwards, I hope you hade a wonderful, merry Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa because that is tomorrow.

Now, I know being thankful and giving thanks for is mostly considered a Thanksgiving thing. And that’s fine if you agree. However, I do not.

I have always been of the opinion that one should give thanks for the good in their lives. And I feel this way especially around the holidays because I have so much and feel endlessly grateful for it all.

So, in not so many words because I’m sure we all have things we’d rather be doing than readings the ramblings of some woman on the internet, I would like to express gratitude to all the things in my life that I am thankful for.

Starting with, my family. I have endless support and unconditional love. Especially when I’m snappy, and moody, and really don’t want to socialize with anyone. I could not be who I am, I could not be happy if I did not have the wonderful people in my life who I get to share a name with. And, if any of you are reading this, thank you. So, so much. I don’t express it, but it really does mean the world to me.

I am grateful for my ability to do this. To put myself out there, in a safe, introvert-friendly way. I am grateful to share my thoughts and ideas, my progress. And sometimes even just random things that really have nothing to do with a writing blog, but I find lots of fun.

And because I want to keep this list short, I’ll end with this.

I am grateful for you. Yes, you. The person reading this blog. Whether you leave a like, or comment, or follow, or not. I am grateful that you are here. I am grateful you take the time to acknowledge my existence and my scattershot thoughts even if they didn’t register as anything more than ramblings. I am grateful for every last one of you seventy people(at the time of posting this) who are following me. Yes, even the spam/bot accounts. And I’m fine with that because it means my words are reaching at least seventy different places, and I know in comparison to some that is so small, but that’s a lot to me. So, thank you. Thank you for caring enough to give me some time and prove in my darkest hour that this will be worth it. I appreciate you more than words on a screen can convey.

And I will leave it at that before I beat the dead horse and start to sound redundant.

So, no matter what you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day. And if it isn’t wonderful right now, I hope it gets better. Because I honestly hope for the best for you all. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Day 8: What I’m Thankful For

Here in Canada it is Thanksgiving. And what we do more than anything else on Thanksgiving, at least in my house, is we say what we’re thankful for.

So I’m going to share with you guys what I’m thankful for this year. And I would like you guys to tell me what your thankful for as well in the comments here. And if it’s not Thanksgiving for you because you live in a place where you either don’t celebrate it, or it’s not that time of year for you yet, I still want you to tell me what your thankful for.

So, what am I thankful for? A lot, I suggest you grab yourself a drink real quick if you’re going to read through this entirely.

1. My parents. I’m sure a lot of people are thankful for their parents or family, and that’s understandable because it’s a normal thing to be thankful for. I’m thankful, specifically for my parents this year because last year(2017) in December, I dropped out of school to pursue a career as an author. And my parents support me in this endeavor. They allowed me to move back home and throw a hundred and fifty-seven percent of my time, attention, and energy into my writing and building up an author platform to be able to market my pieces on. They did not force me to get a job, or pay rent, or anything like that. In exchange, I help out around the house. And I’m unbelievably thankful for this because I know not a lot of people get this sort of opportunity, especially when they’re just starting out. And because of that, I cannot say thank you to my parents enough.
2. My siblings. I know I just said my parents in the previous point, but I’m thankful for both in different ways. My siblings and I have a really good relationship, and I’m very thankful for that. There aren’t any screaming matches, stealing, blackmail, etc. that occurs in some families, at least from what I’m told. My brother has been wonderful in allowing me just to talk at him about my plots and story ideas. My sister has, willingly or unwillingly, been the guinea pig for helping me figure out things with documents, if certain things are working the way I want them to, wording summaries. And both of them are helping me out with my need for beta readers right now. I am so thankful for them, and I’m happy and proud to call them my brother and sister respectively.
3. My followers. At the present time of writing this I have 37 followers on my Tumblr, 15 people following me on this website, and 266 people following me on Twitter. And I am thankful for every single one of you. A book is nothing without someone to read it. It doesn’t matter how good it is, how much time, blood, sweat, tears, revisions, anything goes into it if it’s just going to sit in a warehouse somewhere and collect dust. It’s a modest following, I’m still struggling to get myself out there and put forth my work for you guys to enjoy, and I apologize for the lack of content. But I want you to know that I love and appreciate you and all that you do, whether it’s for me, or for someone else, or just in general. You are amazing, and I am thankful to have you in my life.
4. Coming off the last point: the friends that I’ve made on all these sites. On Tumblr I have maxseidel, scriptuurient, katiehahnbooks, and foxley-writes. On Twitter I met ByronLEllington, CrowleyAzul, mobillwillis, kathyzak99, FrankieInParis, and countless others. These are just some of the ones I interact with the most on there. I am so thankful to have these people who I can talk to, ask questions of, and play tag games with. Honestly, one of the best parts of building up an author platform is meeting great people. And I am genuinely thankful for the people who made the mistake of following me and talking to me.
5. I’m thankful for being able to do what I love day in and out. My family is very supportive of me, which means a lot. And it allows me to write every day. I get to develop characters, create world, design conflicts and magic systems out of thin air. And I’ll get to call this my job in the near future, hopefully. But I get to do this every day, and no one can tell me to stop day dreaming.

That’s what I’m thankful for. Don’t forget to leave what you’re thankful for in the comments here, regardless of its Thanksgiving for your right now, or if you celebrate it.

Thank you so much for joining me for day 8 of my Blogtober 2018 challenge, which is where I post a fall or Halloween themed post everyday for the month of October. And yes, Thanksgiving counts as fall. If you liked what you just read, come back tomorrow and I’ll have another post ready for you. And, if it’s after the 31st, you’ll have all these to go through if you like.

Thank you again for reading, I hope you have a great day/afternoon/evening/night, and, remember, I’m thankful for you.

-T.R. Flynn.