Word count: 40194
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in America. We spent the holiday at my mother’s house, visiting and having fun and eating ourselves into a turkey coma.
I’m very fortunate, I realize. I’m not well-off financially by any means. My family lives paycheck-to-paycheck most months, and we even fall behind on the bills sometimes, but we have a home and plenty of food and clothes and two kitties. It occurs to me quite often that we’re only a serious illness or layoff away from not having those things, and that there are plenty of people this holiday season who will be going without not only a Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas presents, but actual necessities of life. I give what I can to local food drives and other charities, but it’s easy to feel powerless, and even useless, in the face of such overwhelming want.
You’re probably wondering what this has to do with National Novel Writing Month. It’s the Writing part. I know how much I love a good book when I’m having a rough time, whether it’s a thought-provoking literary work, a gut-wrenching drama, or escapist fun. I love being able to inhabit worlds other than my own, to live for a few hundred pages inside someone else’s life. Every page of a good book is like a gift. And when I’m writing, I’m fully aware of the potential my words have to convey that gift to someone else, to give something good to someone who may be struggling. Even when that writing is done during the supposed pressure-free, output-heavy month of November, that idea never leaves me. I know it’s not very NaNoWriMo-like, but I can’t help it.
I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving, and that the holiday season is a happy one as well.
Happy holiday season to you, too, and keep writing and reading. There’s no better way, as you point out, to escape to another world, especially now, when there’s so much going on, home and abroad, that’s worrisome.
Thanks Ward! Right back atcha!