Thanksgiving is just a few days away for the country to the south of me, and since I didn’t do it with my own Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I’d take advantage of the impending celebration for this blog post. Don’t worry, I promise not to get on my soapbox over the irony of the holiday as it pertains to my own native bloodlines. Occasionally, albeit it a rarity, I can avoid them. 😉

Thanks with the Words

I swore I wasn’t going to use these posts as a marketing tool (for the most part, anyway), but if I avoided my writing with the topic at hand, I would be foolish.

I’m extremely thankful for the people that follow me, that read my work, and that support the process. Self-doubt is an insistent ghost, and without people boosting your confidence, that ghost can become a loud and overbearing presence. So, thank you—every friend, reviewer, reader, and follower—you make the effort worthwhile.

I’m thankful that I have the ability to work with a publisher that continues to maintain a high level of ethics both on the business forefront, and their personal stands within the LGBTQIA community. I’m even more thankful that they consider me to be a person, and not just another number on their coming-soon queue. I’m also enormously thankful for the artists that work hard to promote my words through images, be it at a professional level, or a fan level.

Mostly, I’m thankful that the words continue to come. I haven’t quite figured out whether that praise belongs to some divine god of literature, or to the demons in my head. Maybe I’ll have to pass the kudos on to both.

Thanks with the Life

With the business side of things out of the way, I can get to the less serious stuff. Life can be hard; it has a way of dragging down even the most perky of beasts, and suffice it to say “perky” isn’t a trait I’d normally use to describe myself. Cars break, bills keep showing up in the mailbox, prices keep rising, people have been known to have moments of complete suckholeishness, and, well… I’m sure you get my point without me continuing that list further. As such, I’m thankful for the things that drag me out of the darkness and back into the light:

Penny, my Chihuahua (pronounced Chee-Who-Ah-Who-Ah between these walls and when no one else is around to hear my foolishness). She could care less if I choose to avoid the shower, a hairbrush, or a razor, and only has momentary lapses into judgemental territory if I forget that it’s food time. Otherwise, she pretty much seems to think I’m God and, let’s face it, most of us don’t get enough of that kind of worship in life.

Porn. Yes, I admit it, I love watching porn. I find absolutely nothing wrong with consensual adults doing what they want to make a living, and I fully and one-hundred percent support the people that do. Yes, there are bad parts and bad people and bad situations, but I don’t see any of the ugly stuff on the sites that I pay to be a member of (yes, pay—theft is theft is theft). Of course, that being said, many porn-watching sessions devolve into a “if we were producing this” conversation between my friend Kelly and I as opposed to anything else. (Seriously… the plans the two of us can conceive while watching porn are positively sky-reaching.)

People. As much as people used to scare the bejeezus out of me, I am coming to find out that there are more than a few diamonds to be found amongst the rocks. One of the things this last year of life has taught me is that even as an introvert, having people around can be inspiring, fulfilling, and enjoyable.

Pizza is one thing I am forever thankful for. My advance apologies to the gluten, lactose, or otherwise food-challenged of us, but I mean… just look at this beautiful thing… Manna, I tell you. I could live off it. Okay, I practically do.

Now… if only I could think of one more “P” word that I’m as thankful for as the rest to round this list off…

Ah, yes. Got it.

Perhaps, though, this isn’t the place to share that particular joy. 😉

A very happy Thanksgiving to those of you that are getting ready to celebrate it, a belated wish of good tidings for those of us that already did, and my hopes that the upcoming week will be full of the very best of the best that life can bring you.

Until next time!

AF Henley <3

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Henley was born with a full-blown passion for run-on sentences, a zealous indulgence in all words descriptive, and the endearing tendency to overuse punctuation. Since the early years Henley has been an enthusiastic writer, from the first few I-love-my-dog stories to the current leap into erotica. A self-professed Google genius, Henley lives for the hours spent digging through the Internet for ‘research purposes’ which, more often than not, lead seven thousand miles away from first intentions but bring Henley to new discoveries and ideas that, once seeded, tend to flourish.

Henley has been proudly publishing with Less Than Three Press since 2012, and has been writing like mad ever since—an indentured servant to the belief that romance and true love can mend the most broken soul. Even when presented in prose.

Henley’s newest release, “The Chase and The Catch” hit the market on November 19th and is now available at your favourite online book retailer in both ebook or print format. Check it out on Amazon, or directly through LT3 Press.

For more information please stop by for a visit at afhenley.com.