John recently wrote a post on the Book of Gold, that one book that touches you and becomes your favorite book of all time.
Here’s one of the best paragraphs:
If you only write one book in your whole life, and only sell 600 copies or less, nonetheless, I assure you, I solemnly assure you, that this book will be someone’s absolutely favorite book of all time, and it will come to him on some dark day and give him sunlight, and open his eyes and fill his heart and make him see things in life even you never suspected, and will be his most precious tale, and it will live in his heart like the Book of Gold.
This has such a beautiful ring to it, but some days, we writers don’t believe it is true. Some days, we look at the hours, weeks, months, and years that we have slaved away on some project and the very low pile of dollars such a pile has produced, and we despair.
Because some books just fall through the cracks, right?
Some get forgotten witout ever touching anyone’s heart, don’t they?
Then, there comes that occasional rare glimpse of blue sky amidst a cloudy gray overcast, those rare moments when we actually see that we have touched someone’s heart.
And we remember, bills and finances will come and go. But touching someone’s heart, making a difference in their life, will last forever.
I had such a moment this morning. I got out of bed groggily, at some unearthly early hour, in order to get the kids off to school. The older three are in high school and rousing the Cherubim takes an entire Act of God every morning. (Thank you, God, for your support here.) I stumbled into the bathroom holding my tablet and blearily checked my email in the process.
Sometimes, there are nice personal notes from friends, but this morning it was only Facebook stuff. Facebook stuff is not nearly as cheery, as so often it’s not meant for me at all. A comment by a stranger on a friend’s post upon which I left a comment.
Then I saw the delightful words “tagged you”, which meant that at least one message was actually meant for me. I opened it up and saw:
Should I include a fun and fiction list? OK–here ya go:
1. LOTR trilogy (for the uninitiated, LOTR stands for Lord of the Rings) by JRR Tolkien
2. The 13th Tale by Diane Satterfield -beautiful prose, suspenseful story
3. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell
4. The Eight by Katherine Neville
5. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
6. Prospero Lost (trilogy) by L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright
7. Adventure true story books – like Wild by Cheryl Strayed;
8. Seven Summits by Frank Wells and Dick Bass;
9. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and his "in a sunburned country" was good too (which makes 10!) whew!!
This morning, the Cherubim resisted the rising and shining process just long enough that, by the time I got the kids to school, the princess had missed the bus to the second location where her Childhood Development class is held. So, I offered to drive her. It was a good day for it, because she was lugging around my first grandchild, Apple Wright.
First grandchild, Apple Wright
The princess doesn’t take Apple very seriously. She’s mainly interested in what she is going to bake with the flour once the week-long be a parent project is over. I, on the other hand, take Apple very seriously. I had to babysit her yesterday, as Ping-Ping had an SOL. I took her to ballet class with me.
Apple watching Grandma (me)
and Great Grandma at ballet class.
Anyway, I drove her what should have been a fifteen or twenty minute round trip…but we ended up spending twenty minutes just sitting on one spot waiting to get around some very badly planned construction. As I sat there, not moving more than five feet in fifteen minutes, missing my chance to take a walk in the morning with John, I did not feel dismayed. In fact, I couldn’t help kind of smiling.
Something I had written had actually mattered to someone.
Who cares about things like immovable traffic!
So don’t give up. You never know when this will happen to you!
