The Magic and Menace

September 19, 2016

A Café Moment

I have a love/hate relationship with Bookstores.

I absolutely love them.

I walk in and instantly I’m transported, inspired by the row upon row of created works, colourful, bound, bursting with enthralling titles, inviting me to jump into an adventure.

I am so attracted to the magical possibilities the world of printed books offers. I am dazzled by the glossy cover images, the thickness of the pages, the tangible goal realized, at the end of the journey.

But I do hate them.

If ever there was a more in-your-face example of victory assaulting you, the novelist-in-waiting, it’s a Bookstore.

Row upon row of finished products: the great, even the not–so-great, sit or lie on flashy display tables, boasting awards or “special picks,” enticing you to buy. Reminding you that ‘YOU ARE NOT HERE!’

Everywhere you look, you’re bombarded with the very fact that so many others before you have succeeded in achieving the very thing that you are so desperately struggling to obtain: a published work.

Each time I receive my edited pages back from my editor, I am pointedly reminded of how far I still must go, to even come close to such an achievement. It’s like chipping away at an ice berg that refuses to melt.

And yet, I keep at it.

Why do I bother? Why don’t I just surrender and subsist instead on the grand accomplishments of others?

Because it’s in my blood. I don’t know anything else.I want to be acknowledged as the writer I know I am meant to be.

I suppose then, there is a greater purpose at hand.

As long as I am encouraged to push forward, inspired to create and am challenged to compete, I will appreciate the mighty Bookstore, for all its magic and menace.

Paula Antonello Moore, Writing & Thoughts. Copyright: Sunday, September 18, 2016

Image: Indigo Books by Reliance Construction

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