I'd like to thank the academy...

As a reader, I loved books for their stories, cover art and such. But now, as a writer, I love a different part. I love acknowledgments (thank you’s, the part of the book where the writer gushes about their amazing support systems, whatever you call it.)

 If you’re a writer yourself, you know how solitary writing can be. After all, your job is basically listening to the voices in your head, and writing them down... Not a whole lot of room for social activities. At least, in my experience, social writing is not very productive. The acknowledgments are so important to me, because I can only imagine how many personal sacrifices those people make because they love the writer.

There's a quote that says that women are like teabags- you don't know how strong they are until you put them in hot water. I think relationships are the same way. You can be fine, and have a GREAT relationship (or friendship) but when the going gets tough, or boring, or you lose time for each other, what happens? The test of any friendship is how they can relate to you when you're writing, and not being very interesting. It's NOT easy being friends with one of us, especially when we can't go out and do stuff because we need to get another couple of thousand words down. We don't make our part of the friendship easy- the voices in our head tend to dominate.

I want to throw this out there to anyone who cares, and anyone who knows me, and still speaks to me. Thank you. Writing is something so important to me, that I couldn't imagine living without it, and I owe you so much- for times when I had to cancel something fun, or wrote while we were on the phone, only managing to get out "Mhmm's" and "Oh, definitely. I get you." Without a great support system, we writers would take to the bottle before ten, and that would NOT be pretty. I’m not naming names, because anyone reading this blog, or anyone who has has some kind of interaction with me over the past year deserves this. So, thanks.

Who do you want to thank? Who supports you, despite the cost?

THIS WEEK:

I listened to: Dinah Washington, and ALL CAPS’s new album, lowercase.

I watched: Oliver! Live! With my lovely, lovely friend GloriaTangerine. “Who will buy this wonderful morning...?”

I read: Paranormalcy!

I wrote: “Everything alright?” Annie said from the kitchen.
“It should be. But next time, leave the parenting of MY daughter to me, okay?” She gathered up the bags, and ran back up the stairs. Jenny knocked again At Callie’s door, silently praying her daughter hadn’t changed her mind. The door handle twisted and the whitewashed door groaned as Callie opened it and let her mother in. She placed the colorful bags on the bed, and turned, ponytail whipping around behind her, to face Callie- one bag in her grasp, and an excited look on her face.

I wish: You joy and happiness, but above all this, I wish you love.

So what did you listen to, watch, read, write and wish this week?