The Thankful Blog Post
November is the month of thanks. The time we give thanks. The time we are thankful. We celebrate Thanksgiving, stuffing our faces with food and preparing for Christmas and the New Year. For me this year I have a lot to be thankful for actually. I recently moved closer to family. I got back on medication for my mental health. I am exalling academically with my studies at Southern New Hamshire University (SNHU), still being on track to graduate this coming April.
Sure, there are things I am still stressed or worried about. Certain things that haven’t gone right/haven’t happened yet, but I am so thankful for the things that have gone right/happened. I am healthy both physically and mentally, more so than I have been in quite some time. I am surrounded by loved ones and a support system that is more quickly available to me for some time. My dogs, Duke and Hazel, are well and behaving so good given the chaos that has been moving and now the holidays. Honestly, life is pretty dang good right now. Small victories are big victories at the end of the day because we are all living small lives in a big world.
I don’t say this to sound dark but to enlighten and encourage you. It is so easy to beat ourselves up and drag us in the mud over such small things. Nobody is perfect. Trust me. I am such a self-doubter and infamous self-sabotage. It has taken me such a long time and through a crazy, twisty, sometimes dark road to be the more positive-thinking, optimistic, and open person I am today. A lot of that is mostly in part due to me finding my niche. My thing. Stories. Reading and writing, and poetry have always been my thing, but I tried to run from it. Hide from it. Make it bad somehow instead of embracing and being thankful for it. I encourage you all to do the same. Find your thing. Latch on to it, and I guarantee you will be better for it.
What I’m Currently Working on
Right now, I am on week six of eight in my current term at SNHU, taking two courses, NEW MEDIA: WRITING/PUBLISHING and INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP. Both courses have been so fun and interesting. The NEW MEDIA class is what led me to create this website, which is a new experience but one I am excited about moving forward. The WORKSHOP is the second part of a three-part course of fiction writing workshops. I have just completed the second draft of my final project for the class, a short story entitled “The Last Storyteller,” which you can find an excerpt of in the Works/Works In Progress section of the website.
Author Recommendation
This Month I recommend reading Caitlin Schneiderhan, and specifically her Stranger Things novel Flight of Icarus. Schneiderhan is a writer of the acclaimed Netflix series and wrote this story following season four stand-out Eddie Munson. The book takes place two years before the events that take place in season four.
I am currently reading this and thoroughly enjoying it. I am a fan of the show, but Eddie Muson was a character that hit me hard. He reminded me a lot of myself. If you’re like me and Eddie resonated with you in season four, I highly recommend picking up Flight of Icarus because Schneiderhan writes him beautifully from screen to paper. Also, if you are chomping at the bits for season five of Stranger Things, stop ripping your hair out and pick up this book in the meantime. It may not have interdimensional monsters but it is a heart-filled story about a kid who everyone has pegged making his own destiny.
Poem for the Month
In the vein of the theme of this month, I have chosen to represent with Mark Doty’s “Brian Age Seven.” This poem begs the reader to be thankful for the little things. Check it out here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52470/brian-age-seven
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