For Thanksgiving Day : The Summer Day
Someday I’ll have a book published and, right inside the cover, I’ll have an acknowledgments page — a crisp white sheet where I can list the names of the people who have helped me on my writing journey.
Of course, I don’t have that page yet, so this post will have to serve as a practice run. Let me know if I left anything (You? I hope not!) out.
Forever thanks to Dave, Cameron and Drew, who scrape the burned edges off the casseroles at dinnertime when the voices of my narrators speak louder than the timer on the oven. Thanks to my beta readers: John, Rae, Lindsay, Shelli, the Write Girls, ForthWriteSky,Lari, Laura… and the reader-readers, who just read it for fun and because I need to think others can’t wait to see my work: Tom, Katherine, Taryn, Josh, Sam.
Thanks to the agents who said “Almost,” and kept me trying, revising, writing more, better. And thanks to those agents who said no… so I was free to say yes when the right one came along. Thanks to Suzie for believing in Raymond, and in me.
Thanks to my friends, the ones who walk around in the world and the ones who walk around on pages, inside books that I love.
Thank you to the other writers out there, who spend their lives writing, teaching, and sharing what they know. Thanks to the readers who buy books, read them, pass them along to friends, and support their libraries and independent bookstores.
Thanks to everyone who helped me gather my courage and start living my “one wild and precious life” doing precisely what it is I feel called to do.
Happy Thanksgiving. Here’s a little gift: a link to some peoms by Mary Oliver, who wrote the words I taped up inside my computer desk, the ones I read out loud most days, especially on those days when thankfulness is harder to come by. Enjoy.
11/25/2009 at 9:07 pm
I love your line about “the ones who walk around in the world and the ones who walk around on pages.” Also, the end of Oliver’s grasshopper poem was lovely. Happy Thanksgiving! You are right, an “almost” and a “no” are something to be thankful for in the end if the work gets better. Happy writing!
11/26/2009 at 2:38 am
Happy Thanksgiving, Lori!
11/29/2009 at 2:45 pm
This is a sweet post. I second Lori’s appreciation of your line about “the ones who walk around the world and the ones who walk on pages.” Shucks and thanks. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
11/29/2009 at 6:35 pm
Love you, too, Lindsey! Hope your Thanksgiving was fun and peaceful.