Try a little thankfulness

Thankfulness isn't the emotion frothing away on the top of the cauldron right now, let me tell you. But keeping focussed on my writing career makes the question easier to answer. Writing is solitary; publishing is anything but and I don't think I'd be a published author without this lot:

5. I'm thankful for all the other writers, readers, bloggers, editors, reviewers, booksellers and librarians in Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Crimewriters' Association, The Society of Authors, and on Facebook and Twitter and at Bouchercon and Left Coast and Malice and Harrogate and Bloody Scotland and The Wigtown Book Festival and The Edinburgh Book Festival. Whoever said that writing was solitary was an imbecile, actually.

4. Especially Terri Bischoff.

3. I'm thankful for J.K.Rowling. The extraordinary explosion of Harry Potter catapulted UK publishing into a new world of optimism (and cash) just exactly when I started trying to make my living as a writer. She changed publishing and I caught the wave. The Cormoran Strike novels make me happy every time I think about them too. Roll on book 4!

2. I'm thankful for my agent, Lisa Moylett. She took me on eleven years ago and has stuck with me through thick and thin (and thinner and thinner). She knows everyone, loves screwing a better deal out of a no-discussion boilerplate agreement, genuinely loves books. She always reads everything at the speed of light and speaks her mind; she's always ready to chat about books we love for hours on end; she listens to my mad rants and heartfelt pleas and can tell which are which. She makes everything more fun and less scary.

1. Finally, I'm thankful for Neil McRoberts. My husband - like Cathy's (see yesterday) - supported my decision to pack in being a university lecturer and try my hand at writing despite what that did for the family coffers in the first couple of years. He doubled down on it after the 2008 recession when my income - so briefly healthy - dwindled to a speck you could cough out of existence. Also, he's listened to more middle-of-the-night panics than I can remember delivering. Cheers, pal.

Happy Thanksgiving, American friends. Happy random Thursday in November, everyone else.