In Which I Mention Pie As Often As Possible

Hey, it's that Wednesday before Thanksgiving again when I'm supposed to blog. Before I get to that, I have an announcement.
CONTEST!
If you haven't already visited my website (or one of the others participating) to join in the Men Under the Mistletoe Scavenger Hunt, you still have time. All you have to do is read the excerpts (hey, good m/m fic is what we love around here, right?) answer a few questions on the entry form and you could win $100 USD gift card to the ebook retailer of your choice. You can buy a Kindle for that!Or pie.

Check back here on the Slash and Burn blog December 7 for a visit from all the authors in the anthology, Josh Lanyon, Harper Fox, Ava March and me.

So yeah, in the US it's Thanksgiving. Or as comedian Lewis Black calls it, Christmas Halftime. (between Halloween and Christmas). I have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. There's all that pressure on eating and family (like none of us have issues there) and there the whole celebration of eating one particular animal and the bizarre ritual pardoning of one. I think I like the way Anya describes it in "Pangs" (the Buffy Thanksgiving episode from season four), "In order to commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie."

I do have a Thanksgiving scene in Regularly Scheduled Life (oh the family stress) and one in Bad Boyfriend which you can read for yourself on December 6, but that's toward the end of the book, so I can't really excerpt it (though it does mention pie).

Despite all my mixed feelings about Thanksgiving, I never have a problem with stopping to be grateful for what I have. In no particular order, this is what I've been grateful for in the four and a half hours I've been conscious today.

Readers
Hey, if I didn't have readers, no one would be over here bothering to read what I'm thankful for anyway. Thank you so much for liking the stories I tell.

Editors
If my editors weren't awesome, I wouldn't have readers. (See above)

My wife

The fact that I can call the woman I've been in love with for twenty-five years my wife and it means something in our home state of New York

Writer friends
Man. Writing is a lonely slog. Having people who get your brand of insanity helps a lot.

Friends who aren't writers
Sometimes it's good to talk to people who aren't all wrapped up in your tiny little fictional world. Perspective is a good thing.

Twitter
How I get a good fix of those friends.

Life
A pain-free, functioning body and mind and the current ability to afford to keep it that way

Tea
*insert a choir back up as I speak that word with reverence*

That totally awesome Buffy Thanksgiving episode "Pangs" which I watch while I bake pies to take to my parents

Parents who are not only cool with but proud of a lesbian daughter who writes gay erotica (as long as she brings the Snickers pie)

I'm going to go be grateful for some more tea now. I've got more words to write and pies to bake. Oh, and one more thing:

Thanks for reading.