Wickeds, our theme for this month is gratitude. What are your protagonists grateful for as we approach Thanksgiving?
Edith/Maddie: Mac Almeida is always wicked grateful for her family in Westham and for being able to live near them. Robbie Jordan feels blessed to have a popular business operating in the black, due in part to Danna and Turner, her fabulous assistants. And Rose Carroll gives thanks that the women of Amesbury continue to seek her help with their pregnancies and births – despite all the murders she’s been associated with.
Jessie: Since my Beryl and Edwina series is set in England, the holiday is not looming large in my characters’ minds. That said, both of my protagonists are grateful that their private enquiry agency is starting to make a little money and that they continue to feel blessed by each other’s company.
Liz: Maddie James is grateful that she’s back home for this holiday season. After living on the west coast for 10 years and swooping in for the holiday, she recognizes that there’s a lot to be said for spending the entire season with family, especially her beloved Grandpa Leo. And, surprisingly, her sister Val.. Stan Connor is grateful to be spending her first holiday married to Jake. And that there haven’t been any murders lately in Frog Ledge!
Barb: Jessie, I wondered if Beryl would pester Edwina to find a turkey and somehow shove it in the cooker. Julia Snowden is grateful for her family and that their clambake business has survived and even thrived for another year. Jane Darrowfield is grateful for her great, good friends, though she’s feeling a little off-balance because she’s having dinner with her friend Harry Welch, his sons and their families for the first time.
Julie: Barb, I was wondering the same thing about Beryl. Maybe she’ll try her hand at an apple pie? Lilly Jayne is very grateful for her friends, and for feeling as though she’s rejoined her life after a period of mourning. I suspect that Ernie and Tamara will talk her into hosting a large dinner. She may grumble, but she’ll love every minute of it.
Sherry: Sarah is grateful to be alive after all of her experiences over the past seven books. She’s also grateful for her friends who’ve become her family. Chloe is grateful she gets to meet readers next year.
Readers: What are you grateful for? Writers: What are your characters grateful for?
I suppose if pushed to pick something right now, I’m thankful for the entry level friendships I’ve made in the book world over the last year (or so).
I haven’t given the idea of things to be thankful for much thought so far, but at least this post gives me a push in that direction since the place I’ve been invited to for Thanksgiving day dinner has a tradition of going around the table for people to say what they are thankful for.
I’m glad we caused you to ponder, Jay. I’ll probably get a chance to say it again, but if not, Happy Thanksgiving.
Grateful for my wonderful hubby, a comfortable home, food in the pantry and even with health issues being able to enjoy retirement.
The thing I’m most recently grateful for is getting it all done in one day. I had to travel two hours each way yesterday for two doctor appointments with specialist. The first doctor needed to do the endoscope test and I was dreading having to make yet another trip back to Little Rock. When he found out I had fasted for the blood work I knew I’d have to have and he had a cancellation at the last minute, they were able to get ‘r’ done right then in between my two appointments (which thankfully were side by side in location). He told the anesthetist that he wanted me knocked out so I wouldn’t remember anything, but not enough to make me loopy for my next appointment. He did just that. I had the test, spent time in recovery and made it to the next doctor with 30 minutes to spare. Saw second doctor then had the lab work that I fasted for and was on the road home by 5. Made for a very long day, but just grateful it was just ONE day and made it back home to my bed.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
Wow, what a marathon day. I’m not sure grateful is how I would be feeling after that.
I’m grateful for an extremely loving husband and daughter, and for being sober to recognize how fortunate I am.
A beautiful sentiment. Go you.
I’m grateful that my family didn’t lose anything in the fires at the end of October. We all evacuated at some point.
We are very grateful for this too, Mark.
Neither of my main characters in “A Death in Shubert Alley” is particularly grateful. Sergeant David Richards isn’t feeling grateful because he’s been unable to solve the murder, and sees no prospect of it ever being solved. Paul Cooper isn’t feeling grateful at all because he’s dead, and it looks like no one will ever know why.
On the other hand, in my cozy series-in-progress, Mary, my protagonist, is feeling quite grateful. She’s finally becoming her own person, after decades under the thumb of her well-intentioned but domineering ex-husband. She’s grateful for her new business, even though it isn’t quite turning a profit yet, so it’s a struggle. But she’s also thankful for the struggle, since that’s an important thing currently giving her life meaning. She’s also thankful for her new “family of choice” including her employee David, her good friend Elaine, her Airedale, Ramoth, and especially all the lovely and friendly customers in whose lives she can meddle (although she would NEVER think of herself as a meddler).
Personally, I am feeling grateful for many things today. Of course, as always, I’m grateful for “The Wickeds”, the family of a sort everyone here has become for me, and the space to expound (OK, bloviate) on such a wide variety of topics.
I’m grateful that at age 70, I’ve become a published author. I’m grateful for all the good friends in my life (including a lot of writers) who are more of a family to me than most of my blood-relatives ever became.
I’m grateful for the Salesforce ecosystem in which I earns my daily bread, and particularly its central concept of ohana. [For those of you not fluent in Hawaiian, “ohana” means family, both blood relations and those non-blood relations who have become family in our lives. It’s fundamental to the way Salesforce operates. If you’re beginning to sense a pattern in my life and my writing, you’re absolutely correct.]
It’s the season for gratitude, and I’m particularly grateful to have this place to be able to share all the gratitude that’s overflowing in me this year. May every one of you feel the same way!
What a lovely thing to say, Lee. And we are every grateful to you and all our readers and commenters.
I think my protagonist Allie Cobb is most thankful that she gets to live close to friends and family in Southern Indiana after being away from them in New York City for a decade. I’m her case, she was able to go home again.
That is lovely.
Grateful for every day “looking at the grass from this side,” friends, neighbors, knitting group . . . and BOOKS! and the authors who write them. <3
Also grateful for the wonderfully generous public libraries, and the never-ending stream of books and other materials they willingly lend. <3
I’m grateful for my family, my ocd cat and for wonderful authors that not only write wonderful/fun cozies, but engage with their readers, like you 6 awesome ladies!!! So I’ll take this opportunity to say Thank-you Julie, Jessie, Edith, Barb, Sherry, Liz for all you ladies do for all your readers!!! xoxoxo