Something to Celebrate

     It's December 19th, my one-year blogiversary!  Time to stop and reflect on what this blog has meant to me over the past year.  More than anything, it has given me a home for my thoughts - a home that others can visit whenever it suits them to.  It has led me to new friends whom I have never met in person but still feel that I know so well.  It has taught me that all writers start from the same place.  Some are younger when they start, some older; some achieve success early, some never achieve it at all; but we're all born with a little person inside, someone different from our everyday selves, who very soon starts screaming to be let out, to be heard.  This blog has been my place to let my inner little-person out to yell and bluster and jump up and down and say some things that I believe needed to be said.  Many times over the past year, this blog has made it possible for me to keep on with my writing without sinking into months-long periods of despair over the pointlessness of my efforts.  And, too, this blog has brought me out of myself, given me the courage to reach out and contact authors I admire and ask them for interviews.  Not once have I gotten no for an answer.  I have gotten encouragement and honest, thoughtful responses to my questions.
     This blog has given me a place to grow and change.  In other words: a place to live.  Thank you, readers, official followers, unofficial followers, interviewees, comment-leavers, fellow writers, and everyone else who has helped me get to this point, thrilled to be starting my second year here.  You are all awesomely awesome, and I am awesomely grateful.  Please stick with me!  I have a feeling that the best is yet to come!  Happy winter solstice holidays, and happy New Year.  May it bring peace and love to where they're most needed.
     (Can you open this picture? If you can't: in honor of Nelson Mandela and whatever time he may still have with us, these are the South African doves of peace, and the logo reads: "Peace Is In Our Hands.")