A Writer's List of Thanks (and a little NaNo tip)

A couple of my Cabinet buddies had great ideas for my post today: How to NaNo (Been There, Done That); and Loving and Hating your Manuscript--The Art of Revision. The fact is, I'm just not feeling all that informative today (meaning the murk of November is making my brain fuzzy). But those sound like great posts, hopefully one of us will write them (hint, hint).

What you get from me today is a writer's list of thanks. I figure it will be easy to come up with this if I'm truly thankful. We'll see...

1. Writing. Duh! (You can tell I'm really reaching here).  I'm grateful for anyone who ever set story to page, committed words to forever, and who inspired me to do the same. Long live imagination and the hope of touching another life with wisdom...or just pure entertainment.
2. Critique buddies. It takes a certain kind of friend to point out all your flaws in such a way that you want to thank them afterward. My writing friends are twined around a special part of my heart that spills into every facet of my life.
3. Computers. Oh yes. Word processing programs. Email. Can you imagine doing all this in longhand? 
4. Hope. I think writers must be the most hopeful people on the planet--even the naturalists. Without hope of completion, publication, communication...why write? (Professionally of course). Hmmmm, I may be hitting on the reason I haven't written in quite some time here.
5. I like fives. It just seems there needs to be five things in a decent list. PUBLISHERS! READERS! Thank you, thank you. (Oh, and those little things like family, conferences, seeing my books in print, organic raw chocolate and the delete key...I love you, too).

And for those who just want a NaNo tip:

For the love of Castle, if you want to finish, JUST WRITE THOSE WORDS! Don't look back. Just go, go, go!

Your editorial hat will never in a million years get you through NaNo. Just type. Seriously.

Did you make a false move? Who cares. Just zing your character to a new place and go.

NaNo isn't about sonnets, it's about words. You can SO do it if you just type the words. Now quit reading this and go type.

No editor.

Type.

 No deleting. None.

Type.

(Now editing, that's another story. We should probably cover that in December.)

NO EDITING IN NANO!

Type--and remember to be thankful that you can and are!