Maggie's Newsletter

November 15, 2010 Update!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow.  It seems like it was just the last bi-weekly web-update where I was saying Happy Halloween and premiering my tongue in cheek video “When Vampire Wasn’t Cool.”  And now, here we are fast approaching Thanksgiving.

Oh, wait, that’s because it was Halloween two weeks ago!  I can’t believe how fast the year is speeding by.  Or maybe it just seems fast because I’m having so much fun.

Here’s what’s new at the site here in Mid-November.

First, you get to see the first of 9 weekly “JibJab” holiday greeting videos from me and mine and the guys over at Jibjab.com, who are geniuses, and deserve to make more money than Bill Gates. I adore them.  Since we only update the site every other week, I’ll just Tweet the links to the ones I post in between.  (My Tweets appear in the sidebar here, in case you haven’t noticed.)  And the holiday silliness will also run at my blog, Shayne’s Shenanigans, and on my Facebook page.  I may have other holiday surprises in store, so stay tuned!

We’ve added brand new cover art for the January anthology, HEART OF WINTER.  I really wish they’d told me what they were going for, though.  My story, “Toughest Girl in Town” takes place in an urban setting.  The cover, though gorgeous, doesn’t match it at all.  Maybe my colleagues Day LeClaire and Linda Winstead Jones set their stories in the Colorado Rockies!  One can only hope.  =)  It’s great art, though, and I love it and am so pleased to be in such stellar company. 

New too, this week, an excerpt from The Toughest Girl in Town, just to whet your appetite for the story in January.

In work related news, I’m speeding along on TWILIGHT FULFILLED, and have nearly hit the halfway point.  It will definitely be finished before the New Year.  And I’m working, too, on a couple of super secret notions for my next project.  More than a couple, actually.  There are just so many fabulous stories waiting to be told, I cannot possibly pick one.  What to do, what to do?

Ah, it’s a good problem to have, isn’t it?

Because it’s Thanksgiving, I’m beginning my gratitude list.  Before my letter to Santa, each year, I’ve found it’s helpful to first create a list of the things I’m thankful for from the year that is winding down.  I’m not going to publish my gratitude list, because a lot of it is very personal, but let me just say that I would not trade lives with anyone.  Not the most famous author, not the most beloved movie star, not the wealthiest billionaire nor the most gorgeous model.  I am so very happy in my life that I have a near nuclear meltdown when it gets disrupted in the least.  (I’m working on it!)  Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.  Mostly it’s just bliss.

Now at this point, most people would add, “except for....” and start listing the things they still lacked.  Not me.  I have as many of those as the rest of you.  Pounds to lose--yes, but not as many I once had.  Debts to pay--a mountain of them--but not as many as I had last year.  One by one, they surrender to my steadily improving financial skills.  “Stuff” I want that I don’t have yet?  Tons!  That’s what life is, moving from the spark of desire, to the full blown manifestation of it!  By the time it arrives, you should have a dozen new desires you’re working on.  That’s the joy.  That’s the journey.  That’s the expansion.  Do we ever get everything we want?  Yes.  When we croak.  Until then, it’s expand, expand, expand.  I refuse to even consider the stuff I don’t yet have as anything other than fuel to propel me on to what is better and better.

And with all that said, (and reams of more detailed appreciative specifics) I can move on into this beautiful holiday, on to writing my letter to Santa, on to giving more thought to the things I want to manifest in my life during 2011 and on to decking my halls.  Oh, yeah.  It’s time!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Maggie