Thanksgiving has always been my mother’s holiday. She’s been hosting it for as long as I can remember, and has claimed for years that it’s her favorite holiday. Maybe it is. Let’s look back at some of my fondest Thanksgiving memories and try to figure out why, because frankly, I’m stumped.

Thanksgiving 1981: My mother was particularly pleased that year to have found adorable candles in the shape of pilgrims to use as festive centerpieces. My cousins Paul, Sal, and Lori, my sister Kim and I were all kicking each other under the kids’ table, bored out of our minds, until Sal had a brainstorm: his mother, my Aunt Stephanie, had brought pigs-in-a-blanket appetizers, complete with cocktail swords stabbed through them. There were tiny plastic weapons littered throughout the house. Sal was not one to miss such a prime opportunity.

Soon, the children’s table was awash in manic giggling as Sal managed to stick a record thirty-nine plastic swords into one much-abused pilgrim candle. My mother was not amused.

Incidentally, this was the same year we discovered my cousin Lori had the brilliant talent of being able to hang a spoon from her nose. Where this magical ability came from, I don't know, but I can report that it is still impressive thirty-five years later.

Thanksgiving 1998: Fast-forward ten years. My sister was now married, and her in-laws were joining the Longos to break bread together for the holidays. The Kanes are lovely people. They surely found the farm, and our family, quaint and for the most part, not crazy (they did not know us well yet).

My mother was alarmed to catch movement out of the corner of her eye while preparing dinner. She thought she’d seen a mouse dart under the refrigerator, which, while mortifying, was not entirely unexpected that time of year on a farm. She discreetly called my father over and whispered the details of her dilemma to him. Could he eliminate the mouse before it became an embarrassing situation? Note: she forgot to say “as inconspicuously as possible.” This will become important in the next paragraph.

Dad was, of course, the perfect man for the job. He grabbed a fork, squatted down, and with the reflexes of a ninja, managed to impale the mouse on the fork in one jab. I will not go into more squeaking, squirming detail than that; I will only say that it was both incredibly impressive and truly disgusting. One of my favorite Thanksgiving stories.

Thanksgiving 2003: At this point my sister and brother-in-law had two children. Evan, who was conveniently born right around Thanksgiving, thus allowing us to combine his birthday party with the holiday every year, was turning one. He’d been napping most of the afternoon, and his Aunt Julie and I took it upon ourselves to wake him up for his party. This is because in 2003 neither of us had much experience with infants, and we were dumb.

Evan was not pleased. He screamed like a banshee, he cried, he did not want to get up right now, and why did we deprive him of sleep? Aunt Julie tried to make him laugh, and he wailed and turned purple with heartbreak over his lost nappy-time. She quickly abandoned ship and headed downstairs for pumpkin trifle. But I recognized this behavior. It was the same tear-filled tantrum I went through every morning when my alarm went off. I, too, have never understood why grown-ups think that anything, even cake, is more important than sleep. It was in that moment, while I was cooing to my angry, heartbroken nephew who'd had his blissful nap interrupted, that I realize something truly special: we were kindred spirits, my nephew and I. I sat down with Evan in my lap, watching fat, hot tears spill down his cheeks, his breath hitching as he wound up for another wail, and started to cry with him. I wanted a nap, too.

Mom says Thanksgiving is about family. I guess she’s right.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Did you visit The Storyside this week? Here's what you might have missed:
Fabulous Free Fiction: "Good Guy Standing in the Rain" by David Daniel
Author memories: "Author Flubs: What Not to Do" with Vlad V., Rob Smales, David Daniel, and me

There’s a new woman at work who has appointed herself our floor’s social director. I think we all know someone like this: the person who says “hello” in the bathroom (breaking the cardinal rule that you do not speak in the lavatory unless the other person in there is related to you or a really close friend). The person who organizes Secret Santa around the holidays, and you always get someone you don't know and have no idea what might interest them for a gift. In this case, she was the woman who pulled together a “get to know your neighbor” potluck lunch.

I do not like this woman.

I’m not an antisocial hermit at work, mind you. I talk to and joke with everyone in my department. We go to the cafeteria in the morning together to get coffee, and often eat lunch together. I even speak to at least one of them outside of work. Plus, there are at least two people not in my department on my floor that I greet every morning. I met Maureen, who sits two aisles down, at a book signing once. And Lisa in psychiatric claims? She and I went to high school together. I'm practically a social butterfly, darn it!

This was not good enough for the social director. She organized a pre-Thanksgiving potluck, sending out a cheery email blast to all of us on the floor. The sign-up sheet was located at cubicle 314-J, which I’ll admit I couldn’t possibly locate on a floor plan. (This would require me to know the number associated with my own cubicle, which up until this point I thought was universally recognized as “behind Elaine, across from Jim.”)

Our department likes to expend its creative talents on the work we do every day at our job—in other words, none of us wanted to cook or bake. We all agreed to chip in some money and buy our potluck contribution. Sue found the signup sheet and put us down for “large dessert platter.” A day later, she went back to the list (now that she could navigate the J row of our floor, she was feeling like a world explorer, and wanted to show off a bit) and discovered that there were people breaking the inherent rules of potluck: namely, the first person to write down the dish gets to bring that dish. But lo and behold, right after Sue’s dessert platter entry, someone had written “cookies.” And after that, someone else had scrawled “apple pie.” That wasn’t fair! We’d called dessert first! That’s right: there’s nothing like an office luncheon to make the kindergartener in all of us break free.

I hate potluck.

The day of the luncheon, Sue and I ran out and picked up an apple pie, blueberry pie, pumpkin pie, cheesecake sampler, baklava tray, and whipped cream—we'd called dessert first, and we were going to deliver desserts, by golly. We proudly brought our goodies back and helped the social director set up the food. When all was said and done, we had a turkey, mashed potatoes, and (in addition to our desserts) a sweet potato pie; cookies of the chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, chocolate crackle, Italian, and walnut white-chocolate chip varieties; a pineapple upside-down cake; peanut butter bars; brownies; blondies; cream puffs; six more apple pies; and a platter of fudge.

Now, the whole point of this stupid exercise was to meet our neighbors, yet ten people immediately begged off due to being diabetic. But the rest of us were supposed to grab a plate and mingle. My department gamely stacked our plates with turkey and sweets and stood around awkwardly. I looked for Lisa. Her department had grabbed two of the apple pies and retreated back to their cubicles. Maureen had called out sick. The other departments were in the process of filling their plates and making a run for it. The social director, God bless her, was smiling widely with blueberry-pie-stained teeth. For four minutes, while we'd all scrambled to get a slice of the one apple pie that had real apples in the filling and not that canned crap, we’d come together as a cohesive group. She was happy.

At least someone was.

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Did you stop by The Storyside this week?
Fabulous Free Fiction: "The Penitent" by Rob Smales
Entertainment (no, really): "This is the Way the World Ends" by Vlad V.

I do a lot of conventions. It’s a great way to meet new readers, get my face and books out there, and yes, stalk celebrities. But conventions aren’t all fun and games. It can be exhausting greeting and talking with people for three days straight, and I’ll admit, by Day 3, I’m not at my perky best. There are snafus and cancelled guests and times when a potty break is desperately needed yet just can’t happen. I invite you now to Rhode Island ComicCon, to witness the other side of the convention table.

Day 1 (Friday): We arrive a couple hours before the doors open to check in and set up. There’s a line to check in, so Jason drops off our inventory at the table while I stand behind a large, hirsute man who is complaining loudly that he doesn’t want to stand in line. None of us do, pal. It’s all part of the routine. I use the emergency tube of Nair I keep in my purse to depilate a smiley face in his back hair. Jason comes back to relieve me, and I go to the table to set up.

Setting up isn’t just propping up books on a table. I lay out the tablecloth, lint-roll the cat hair off of it, set up book stands, arrange the books in an eye-catching way so that all of the black covers (so prevalent in horror) aren’t displayed together but that the kids’ books are; pull out pens (for signing books), the receipt book (to track sales), and the antibacterial hand sanitizer (for those times people sneeze when perusing books, which happens more often than you might think). I greet our neighbors, like artist Karen Gosselin and puzzle guy Charles Flowers and fellow author Eric Dimbleby. (You do enough conventions, you start making friends with the other vendors.) I put up my banner and arrange the extra inventory under the table and in the meantime, Jason comes back with our passes. We’re ready to go!

Six hours later, I’m tired, I haven’t met any of the thirty-odd celebrities billed to be here this weekend, and I’m already on my second bottle of hand sanitizer (it’s flu season, folks). Sales have been slow, but not terrible—not unusual for a Friday night. I’ve met a charming young man whose mother has MS, an older gentleman who wants to be a writer, and a woman who wants to go to clown school (strangers will tell you the most amazing things at these events). We’ve been invited to dinner by our friends Cat and Barry, so we head to their place, where I gorge myself on good conversation and mozzarella-stuffed meatballs.

Day 2 (Saturday): Saturday is traditionally the busiest day of the convention. Before the doors open, Jason takes me over to Lou Ferrigno’s table to introduce us. That’s right: the Incredible Hulk is in the building. Our exchange went something like this:

Me: I love you.
Lou: Thank you (shakes my hand).
Me: No, seriously, as soon as you stop touching my hand, I’m going to text my sister and tell her I touched you.
Lou: Security!

This elation over meeting the big green guy of my youth lasts for most of the morning . . . until I get my first sneeze-reader (God bless you).

The space behind our table is cramped, and if I’m sitting, I have to twist my body sideways, causing what will eventually be pretty severe pain in my back and knee (still with me seven days later as I type this). The people-watching is fun, though I’m resentful that the man dressed as Jessica Rabbit looks sexier than I ever have. I talk to one guy about a book project he’s been thinking of and another about how he hasn’t been to a dentist in ten years. I tell aspiring authors about different writing organizations and reiterate the importance of editing (I’m sitting across from a sign with an improperly formatted ellipsis, by the way, and it drives me nuts all weekend). Jason disappears for two hours to attend celebrity panel discussions, and I text him because I need the little writers’ room. He ignores me until I text him again, reporting that I have now peed my pants. He shows up five minutes later, panicked and with a handful of paper towels. (To clarify, I had not. It was merely a clever tactic to get him back to the table.)

By the end of the day, we’ve sold several books, I’ve met a ton of new people, and my socialization skills are completely depleted. I bark at Jason because I’m tired, I don’t like socializing, and I certainly can’t write or edit or clean the house when I’m at these things for three days straight. It’s his fault that he’s always trying to promote me and get free tables and invitations to be a guest at these things, the selfish bastard. He makes an emergency stop at Panera Bread to ply me with macaroni and cheese just to shut me up (can’t yell at him if I’m eating). 

Day 3 (Sunday): Stick a fork in me—I’m done. For the first two hours, I can’t even muster up the energy to look people in the eye. I cradle my industrial-size coffee cup (urn, whatever) and try not to cry. I can’t do this. I’m an introvert. This is too much.

Then, a young woman named Anastasia picks up a copy of Ordinary Boy. She reads the back and looks up at me and tells me that the main character sounds just like her. She wants to buy the book and asks me timidly for my autograph. I instantly love this young woman. Okay, yes. This is why I do these things.

I get to meet wrestler Ted DiBiase and eyeball actors Ralph Macchio and Michael Dorn. I slink down lower in my seat when the organizers are questioning bystanders to find out who the vandal was that used a red Sharpie to indicate a space was needed before the ellipsis in the food court sign. I sell lots of books and meet even more people and at the end of the day, Anastasia comes back to buy a second book, because she’s the coolest kid ever and she loves to read.

The convention ends at 5 PM. We have packing up down to a science, and the car is loaded up by 5:15. We head home.

“We did well,” Jason says, and yes, okay, he’s right. But I’m burned out and I’m going to be useless for the next three days. These events exhaust me so thoroughly—mentally, physically, emotionally—that I don’t bounce back quickly from them. I want to tell him that we have to stop doing so many of these things (something I have, in fact, said several times) because I don’t have it in me. It’s too much. It’s all too much.

“That one girl came back twice. That was cool.”

Again, he’s right. That was pretty cool. And because of that one girl who shyly asked for my autograph, the whole convention was worth it. I decide not to gripe during the car ride home, and nap instead. Clean houses are overrated anyway, right? 

I want to tell you about some friends of mine.

They’re all writerly types. That’s the first thing that brought us all together, you see. We share a passion for the printed page; for constructing fantastic worlds with mere sentences, and drawing pictures not with paints and brushes but with words.

This particular writerly friends adventure all started with Vlad V.

Vlad writes all sorts of tales—horror novels and novellas, science fiction, and children’s fantasy books. Vlad had this (not entirely unheard of) idea to start a writers group, in which he and his writing buddies would run stories by each other, providing critique and feedback to improve their fiction. In his author travels, he started collecting his group: Ursula Wong, a women’s fiction writer with a technical mind yet an ability to sketch a scene with beautiful prose, and she also had an eagerness to learn more about the craft; David Daniel, an established fiction author with MacMillan/St. Martin’s Press, who knew the writing world was transforming and wanted to keep up with the changes (plus, he so enjoyed a rousing discussion on things like writing on notepads versus using a word processor); Rob Smales, a horror writer and novice editor who could rattle off ideas faster than the rest of us could write them down; and me, a horror writer/humor blogger/copy editor who, much like Vlad, appreciates the little things in life, like five-cheese-and-bacon macaroni and cheese. (Listen, I know it's important to have friends that like to talk about the same things you do, but it also helps if they like to eat the same things, too.)

Here’s one of the nice things about Vlad: he dreams big. He took a look at all of us: a technically minded engineer-turned-writer; an established author looking to revamp his approach to publishing and marketing; an editor-in-training with ideas; a horror writer/humor blogger who earned her living as a copy editor. Vlad himself was learning more about content editing, website design and promotion, and, like all of us, constantly striving to improve his craft of writing. He looked at our group and thought: Wow. We are all remarkably talented and strikingly attractive. Then: we can be more.

Vlad’s train of thought went something like this: if we pool all of our talents, share ideas, promote each other, and work hard to create the best, most polished stories we can, success will follow. He asked us all to roll up our sleeves, work together, and apply our individual skills for the good of the group. We could write stories and polish and edit and rewrite and collaborate and revise and edit more and . . . well, produce some darn fine tales. Soon, we were creating marketing plans and designing logos and contributing blog content and above all, most importantly, writing stories. Because at our core, amid all of this, is the passion to write.

We’ve published two group anthologies so far (Insanity Tales and Insanity Tales II: The Sense of Fear) and just launched our website (www.thestoryside.com). You’ll notice that going forward, I’ll have links to The Storyside blog posts at the end of my blog each week. We have plans and ideas and dreams and goals for the upcoming year, and the year after that. And the best part is, we get to get together every six weeks or so to talk about our all of these things . . . and inevitably, about the joy of writing.

And yes, we look strikingly attractive doing it. Check us out, won’t you?   
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This week's golden nuggets from The Storyside (click on the descriptions below to be taken magically to the website blog entry!):
Fabulous Free Fiction: "The Visit" by Rob Smales
"How I Was Inspired by a Homicidal Cannibal" by Stacey Longo (hey, that's me!)
Writing Advice: "Adverbs Aren't Your Friends" by Vlad V.