Background Check!

There are a lot of people in this world who have family. To be honest, most have a family of some kind. A mother and/or father, brothers and sisters, or a random combination of any of those. You might have aunts and uncles living with you, grandparents. There are cousins and distant relitives that you never thought even exsisted.

Really, families are amazing!

I know, that in some places, some people don't have families. Parents and grandparents taken away, lost to us forever. Some people are only children, or only have one parent. I know there are tradgities in this world that have ripped parents and loved ones away from us forever.

But today, I want to celebrate the families that are still together, that are still whole, and that are still loving one another even in the midst of the hard times.

I have to be honest when I say that I am one of the lucky ones in the world. To be loved and cared for by my family, and there is so much of it to go round!

My family is huge, in a way that most people don't realize.

I have Eleven brothers and sisters.

I know what your thinking,

Your thinking that's impossible! That's amazing! That's rediculous!

Not really, it's called family.

I am the fourth youngest in my family, along with my twin brother Dragon.
Yeah, I know, my parents had a bit of fun with names. But honestly, anyone who picks at the Black family has to deal with all of us.

I have six brothers and five sisters. Most of which are older then me. But I really don't mind. In fact I love them all to pieces!
Eldest is Rafael, or Raf for short
Next is Hawk,
Dove,
Emerald,
Eagle,
Pan,
Cornflower,
Dargon and I (Phoenix) are twins, but I'm the older (which I constantly rub in his face)
Lucian,
Raven,
and Finch.

My family truly is massive, but I sit here you tell you all this because of one reason.

Beacause out families as writers are our bigest inspiration.
They are there through everything, through our great times when the words seem to flow and meld as if they were paint on a canvas. But they are also there when the writers block as us feeling a hundred feet below where we dream that we will never be able to write again.

And for that, for the days when Raf and Hawk would hand me an idea for a new story; when Emerald and Eagle looked over my work for spelling errors, or when Dragon would sit with me up at night and bounce ideas off me, help me with ideas and force me to write.

For that I want to thank them and all of your family memebers, all your friends who have stuck by you, thick and thin, through everything we've been through. Smilign with us the moment a book was finished, the moment a favorite character finally had to die and you immortalized it in ink.

For that first moment when your name will be in print and they all want a copy that you've signed, for that moment when you can't seem to breath when everything seems to be un-typing itself in front of your eyes.

This is a thank you to all those people, and a reminder that thoses people are the ones that make writing possible for us.

They are the ones that inspire us.
They are the ones that push us forwards, even when we want to just give up.
They are the ones who we will always have no matter what.
They are the ones who make the difference to us.
They are the ones that make writing possible.

I don't know about you...but every single one of my characters is based, if loosly, on one of my family.

And it's them I will forever thank.