When I woke up today - actually I didn't want to wake up. I was short on sleep and wanted to keep sleeping. But I had too much to do this weekend. It was the morning of the poetry group I joined. I usually find them inspirational and like attending. The hardest part is waking up early on a weekend.
Anyway, back to my story. I didn't want to get out of bed, but did because I had so much to do. I attended the poetry meeting and it went well, but it wasn't especially inspirational this time. The meeting ended a little early and since I was meeting my boyfriend for lunch at noon, I decided to browse a book sale at the library.
There were thousands of used books for sale. In my opinion most of the books were pretty boring. But there were hundreds of people flocking all over the place and every shelf had at least a few interested browsers. There are certain things writers hear over and over again. One of them was emphasized by this book sale. All sorts of awful, boring books were for sale (along with some interesting ones). But my own writing was definitely and significantly better than some of these books that had found publishers and been printed. If they can do it, I definitely can! Apparently there is a market for pretty much anything and no matter what type of writing you do, there will be someone somewhere who likes it.
After leaving the book sale, I went to wait for my boyfriend but he was caught up with work and would be taking his lunch break a little later. I waited around and he eventually arrived. We wandered through the RiverMarket and finally had lunch at the 3rd place we considered. It took a while to get there from when I left my poetry group meeting. But had the timing been different, the next couple of things probably would not have happened.
When we arrived at the pizza place, we sat down at the table opposite an intimidating-looking man in his late 30's or early 40's who was alone at his table. We went about our business, and apparently arrived just in time to watch part of a St Patrick's Day Parade. I knew there was a parade but thought it was later in the day. Ironically, it was the first parade I have ever seen in person. Then when we were leaving, we learned that the man beside us had paid for our pizza. But he had already left and we didn't even get his name.
It's kind of funny how some days life can throw you inspiration in the strangest ways. I wonder if the man was a writer, too and overheard part of our conversation about my writing meeting. I have heard a couple of reclusive writers live in the city and I wouldn't have a clue what they look like. Or perhaps he was people-watching and was glad someone didn't avoid him - all the other tables around him were empty. I guess I'll never know for sure.
So the lesson for the day is definitely never judge a day or a book or a person by the cover. A bad day can turn good in the blink of an eye. A published book might not necessarily be quality writing just because it is published (and if they can do it, so can I)! And people can be anyone or anything - they are always doing things you might not expect!
Happy Weekend and Happy Writing!
