Giving Thanks: To All the Readers Who've Kept Me Writing

Thanksgiving is a time for those of us in the U.S. to get together with family and express our gratitude for all that is good in our lives and the world—and a time to sneak off and work on your manuscript while everyone in the house is too drunk and/or full and/or busy arguing about politics to notice. Needless to say, it’s my favorite holiday.

While I'm looking forward to tiptoeing away from the turkey carcass next Thursday to write, right now I'd like to thank all the people who’ve kept me wanting to write. This is not to imply that I’ve been thinking of giving up writing. That would be like me giving up oxygen. However, I must acknowledge that bringing enthusiasm, passion and originality to the page every day—in a profession where commercial success is elusive and effort often goes unrewarded—can be challenging.

The support and encouragement I’ve been lucky enough to receive from so many wonderful readers over the years inspires me to continue giving everything I’ve got every time I sit down to write. That's why I'm sending out a huge THANK YOU to everyone of you who’ve done even just one of the following:    

• Subscribed to my mailing list.
• Remained subscribed to my mailing list even after I used it to promote one of my novels.
• Purchased one of my novels.
• Purchased one of my novels and actually read it.

• Borrowed one of my novels from a friend or library.

• Lent one of my novels to a friend or donated it to a library.

• Told a friend they could no longer be your friend if they didn’t read one of my novels.

• Told your library it could no longer be your library if it didn’t carry one of my novels.

• Threatened to release thousands of cockroaches and/or wasps inside a bookstore if it didn’t stock one of my novels.

• Took the time to review one of my novels on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
• Sent me a message via email or social media to let me know you enjoyed one of my novels.

• Sent me a bottle of vodka or bourbon to let me know you enjoyed one of my novels.

• Chose one of my novels for your book club.

• Asked Oprah to choose one of my novels for her book club.

• Named one of your pets or children after a one of my characters.

• Legally changed your name to that of one of my characters.

• Broke up with/divorced your significant other because they refused to read one of my novels.

• Hired a babysitter so you could finally finish one of my novels.

• Confessed to a crime I committed, thus enabling me to continue writing novels without supervision.

• Served as a member of my “launch team”—a group of awesome individuals that reads advanced copies of my novels before they’re officially published, then helps to build some early buzz via word-of-mouth, reviews, tweets, public graffiti, and, of course, testimonials on stadium Jumbotrons.   

As much fun as I’m having with these bullet points, I’m going to take a break from them now to give ULTRA-SPECIAL THANKS to a couple of readers I’ve been meaning to give such thanks to for a while now:

Angie McMann. Every once in a while a reader who’s not your mother comes along and tells you they think you’re going to be the next big thing in fiction. Then you find out the reader was off their meds, and you go back to feeling insignificant. (And call your mother.) So when Angie McMann—an avid bookworm and an author herself—bought seven copies of my novel The Exit Man for friends in 2015 and asked if I’d autograph them before I got too famous to contact, I assumed she had escaped from an institution. Turns out she was just appreciative and generous.

Not only has Angie bought multiple autographed copies of each novel I’ve published since, she continues to spread the word about my writing to fans of dangerous fiction, and often sends me praise and witty words of encouragement by way of email, Facebook, Twitter and my blog. And as if all that weren’t enough, she eagerly volunteered to proofread the final version of my last two manuscripts before they were published—and ended up catching numerous typos missed by my professional proofreader, who hopefully isn’t reading this.

I’m still not famous like Angie predicted, but she insists I’ll be a household name soon. I just hope it’s for writing and not for some horrible crime I end up committing out of artistic frustration. But even if I do remain just a midlist author, it certainly won’t be due to any lack of effort on Angie’s part. She truly is a writer’s dream—no, not the dream where your keyboard turns into a blowfish that convinces you in Japanese to exhume the body of James Joyce. The other dream.    

Debbie Lavender. Debbie is the meanest reader I love. And the reason I love her is her meanness is really just honesty that’s brutal enough to make me a better writer (but still not as good a writer as I could be—just ask Debbie).

I lived next door to Debbie the two years I lived in New Orleans, over a decade ago. Every night, Debbie (a brilliant lawyer and literature junkie) would sit on the porch—of a home once owned by author Richard Ford—with a glass or bottle of wine in one hand and a giant novel in the other. Whenever she’d see me getting out of my car or catch me stumbling home from one of my seventeen favorite bars in our neighborhood, she’d call me over to offer me a drink and tell me why whatever literary masterpiece she was reading at the time was garbage. So, naturally, I asked if she’d read the manuscript of my debut novel.

I still have scars on my psyche from the editorial feedback she provided following that reading. Gruff notes about plot holes and pacing and narrative structure. I didn’t end up making many of the changes she suggested. That’s why most of you have never heard of my debut novel, and why it’s now out of print.  

I moved to Austin following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but I continue to send Debbie the final manuscript of every novel I write, asking her for feedback on it prior to its publication. It’s not that I’m a glutton for punishment, it’s that I really want to see if I can dazzle the crankiest, bluntest and brightest reader I know. And I know that deep down, beneath all the angry question marks and explanations points and expletives Debbie scribbles in red ink all over my manuscripts, she’s rooting for me to dazzle her. Hopefully I’ll succeed in doing so before she murders me for failing to.  

Several others. I know above I said “a couple,” but I’d be an idiot if I didn’t give special thanks to just a few more people who’ve gone above and beyond for me as readers, keeping me inspired to grind out decent and dangerous fiction most days. These folks include:

• J.R. Hardenburgh. A slightly kinder and gentler version of Deb Lavender (see above), J.R. reads all my stuff and, while a proponent of my books and writing, he doesn’t pull punches whenever he feels I could have done a better job with a plot point or a final scene or a blog post title. And he’s usually right.   

• Amy Shipper. Amy, with whom I worked briefly at a publishing firm in NYC in the early 1990s, not only read the weird satirical shorts I used to write back then, she made the mistake of telling me I had actual writing talent. So you can blame her for my books, which she always buys—and then forces everyone in her inner and outer circles to do the same. She’s perhaps the nicest person I’ve ever met; still, you’d better do as she says or she’ll cut you.

• Yael Schonfeld. Few things are better than being one of just a dozen writers selected by your favorite author (Chuck Palahniuk) to participate in his inaugural ten-week writing workshop. And one of those better things is having a fellow participant as selfless, kind and encouraging as Yael Schonfeld around to help you survive said workshop. I’m not saying getting your work-in-progress critiqued by the iconic author of Fight Club is daunting, I’m just saying it can make you question why you ever became a writer and whether you even deserve to live. Week in and week out, Yael not only picked herself off the mat after having her wonderful work punched in the face by Chuck and the gang, she helped everyone else to their feet so they, too, could avoid a career-ending knockout during the fight of their lives.

• Miranda Burnet. I’ve already thanked (and apologized to) my wife via this blog a couple of times in recent months, but the thing is, I could do so a thousand times and it still wouldn’t be enough to express what Miranda has done for me and my writing career. She’s not only the reason I have had time to write and publish three semi-successful novels over the course of three years, she’s the reason I believed I could. And continues to be. Sometimes, after a couple of bad writing sessions or when my books aren’t flying off Amazon’s virtual shelves, I’ll stomp around and declare it’s just not worth it for me to continue grinding out 250-page stories, that I don’t care any more, that I give up. But rather than pity me, Miranda will ignore me. She does so because she knows my angry declarations are ludicrous—and because she knows I know that. So she’ll wait for me to finish ranting, then tell me to get back to work. She’ll tell me I don’t have a choice. She'll tell me I'm a writer and writers write. And she’ll tell me readers—more of them than I can imagine but not more than she can—await.

Who or what are YOU most thankful for as a reader or a writer? Please share in the comments section below. Oh, and if you are one to celebrate it, Happy (early) Thanksgiving!