Gratitude List Exercise

Gratitude's sustaining benefit to the creative life and why I make a practice of it

I’m grateful to you, my subscribers, who have signed up for my words each Friday. It means a lot to have people receive your writing, that you allow me this space to share insights. Our community has grown this year to well over 3000. That’s astonishing to me. Thanks for being here. I hope you get to eat pie this week!

Photo by Preslie Hirsch on Unsplash

After a really bad day, my spouse and I play the gratitude game. We go back and forth, sharing one thing we are grateful for in the past 24 hours. Sometimes it feels stupid. Sometimes it’s hard to think of anything.

But the actual practice of speaking about what we appreciate, can shift everything.

Gratitude. When I can find it, despite the dark days, it’s not just a panacea. It literally sustains me. It protects my creative spirit. It keeps my writing practice alive, my voice strong.

Thirteen friends and family gathered around our Thanksgiving table this week. As we always do, we expanded the gratitude game so that each person got to share something they are grateful for that happened this past year.

The Thanksgiving after my mom passed, I spoke about friends and family I missed who lived far away but who still comforted me through grief. Another Thanksgiving, I shared my real astonishment at a successful publication of one of my books. This year, I am grateful for good health, family, and the slower pace post-publication. Despite the world.

Words don’t matter. It’s the act of focusing on something expansive to the heart. That makes the difference.

Gratitude nurtures the creative life

Each year, I also write a gratitude list for my writing life.

I ask: What have I accomplished, learned, realized, helped with, or shared this past year that was meaningful to me as a creative person?

I take time to create it, adding to it each day for about a week or two. The act of writing it nurtures me. I reread every time I feel darkness closing in. It’s a sure uplift. Not a panacea, as I said. Not lip service. Something real.

This week, I’ll share a few items from my list in hopes that you’ll create your own.

1. I completed promotion for my last novel, Last Bets, released in April, way before we found out about my spouse’s unexpected surgery. I was free to focus on caregiving, and that felt like a gift of timing.

2. Readers were so happy with my books and they told me. Are still telling me. Very grateful for this.

3. At this writing, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue has won four awards and counting. I just found out about another one last week.

4. Last Bets has also won a (big!) award that will be announced in mid-December and I’m eager to share with you when it’s time.

5. I was happy that one more short story of mine was accepted by a literary journal (from the University of North Carolina Press), a process that feels super slow but when something lands on its feet, it’s heartening.

6. My writing room got renovated and I love it—lots of sun in winter—and my painting studio got a redo as well. I’m looking forward to many hours creating this winter.

7. I was guest on over 30 podcasts this past year and a half. I loved it—a new experience for me.

8. This Substack experience has been wonderful. I am grateful, as I said, for the community we’ve built.

Now it’s your turn.

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Take time today or over the weekend, when you’re recovering from family, football, food, or whatever made up your holiday, if you celebrate one, to explore what you feel thankful for in your creative life right now.

Make a gratitude list, like mine above. Anything, small or large, that you appreciate about being a writer or creative person can be part of the list.

Just the act of writing it can bring an uplift.

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Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December release

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I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.