Giving Thanks: Cold weather, hot tea, comfy chairs

Hi there, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by! All month long, we’re talking about thankfulness, and the many things we writers have to be thankful about. I’m doing my best to show you, through a lens you might not have used before, why these are all things that we should be thankful for, even if they’re things we may not enjoy, or things that we ignore or take as commonplace. We’ve talked about things like editors and wordsmiths, linguistics and syntax, and today, I want to talk about something that I’m fairly certain very few of you have thought to be thankful for—at least, in the way we’re talking about, today.

Giving Thanks: Cold weather, hot tea, comfy chairs

Oh, I know, I’m sure lots of you are thankful for all three of these things. Others of you, I’m sure are thankful for only one or two. And still others are looking at that list and wondering why on earth you should be thankful for those at all. Well, that’s why I’d like to talk about them today.

Really, we writers should all be extremely thankful for cold weather.

Why? Well, what’s your favorite thing to do when it’s cold outside, and you’re cooped up in your house? What’s your favorite place to sit, while you’re doing that thing? And what are you usually drinking, at that time?

Some of you are catching my drift, right about now.

As writers, we should be thankful for cold weather, hot tea, and comfy chairs—because these are all things people enjoy while they’re reading. Many a reader will only read during the colder months, because during the warmer months they prefer to be outside, enjoying the weather. Readers take fall and winter to curl up in those comfy chairs, have a cup of tea, and catch up on all the reading they didn’t get through over the summer (because, let’s face it, we all make a summer reading list, and very few of us make it very far through).

Cold weather means more people are staying inside, staying inside and ordering things like books, so they can keep staying inside and keep churning through those to-read piles. Be thankful for that. Even if your book is stuck in those stacks of to-read books, cold weather means your book has a better chance of reaching the top of the stack, and even being read. It’s probably not going to happen over the summer, so winter is our chance!

So be thankful, my writer friends. Be thankful for cold weather, for hot tea, and for comfy chairs. Because these are all things that lead readers to pick up your book, to enter the world you’ve created, and to enjoy the tale that you’ve so wanted them to be a part of.

[love]

{Rani Divine}