If you live in the states, I hope you find the time to read this. I know it’s Thanksgiving week, and I’m sure you’re busy. So I’ll make it brief.
I spend November focusing on gratitude for all of the great things I have in my life. I feel like Thanksgiving is a highly underrated holiday, more of a carbo load to prep for Black Friday. But I really love this whole month long love fest for the things that we have.
One thing I’m exceptionally grateful for is you.
I say it often, but I don’t think I can ever say it enough. I appreciate every single person who reads Paper Beats World. 2017 has been a great year for me, writing-wise, and you were all a huge part of that. Sometimes writing online can feel like screaming into a crowd of other people screaming. So your likes, shares, and comments mean the world to me.
I always try to find ways to give back to you, for all the love that you’ve given me. And I realized that I have a lot of new followers recently who might not know about something I did earlier this year.
I have two collections of short stories that are totally free. They’re available on Gumroad. Here are links to both.
They download into your Google Books if you have that. While many of the stories have appeared either on PBW or in other publications, there are at least two never before seen stories in each collection.
Now, I really want to ask two favors of you. I know that Friday is the official start of the Christmas season, and a lot of you reading this are eager to get out there and do some serious shopping.
I would ask you, please, to not hit the stores at crazy stupid hours.
Look, I used to work retail. When we opened our store at 5:00 in the morning, that was super fun! People were excited, we were excited. It was a fun day. And, my team and I were still able to enjoy Thanksgiving with our families. I had to go to bed early, but not super early.
Then we started opening at 7:00 on Thanksgiving night. And staying up all night long. That meant that retail managers, like myself, were not able to celebrate the holiday with our families. I actually worked from 6:00 on Thanksgiving night until 9:00 Black Friday morning. And guess what, retailers aren’t going to stop doing this sort of things to their employees until people start telling them that it’s wrong. Trust me, the people who work in these stores don’t have a choice. There’s a strong feeling in retail that everyone is replaceable. Stores don’t have any trouble replacing even an entire team, even in the middle of the holidays. Please help.
The other thing I would ask you is this, and I’ve said it before.
Do the things for the holidays that you want to do, not what you think you’re supposed to do. Bake cookies if you want to bake cookies. Decorate if you want to decorate. Send cards to people you actually want to keep in contact with. Buy or make gifts for people who it brings you joy to buy for! Christmas has a crazy high suicide rate, please don’t add to that.
Happy Thanksgiving. Please enjoy the time with your family.
Paper Beats World 
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