There’s something to be said for humility.
Yes, everyone, just by the reality of being a child of God, wants to, deserves to and is special.
But let’s face it, aside from your momma and dem, your kids, your friends (the one’s that ain’t hatin’), your mate (if you’re lucky), or your dog (if you have one) actually believe it.
That being said, recently I was having a ‘don’t you know who the hell I am?!’ moment and I drove to a certain inadvertently, non-responsive bookstore to retrieve my books.
Yaw, I was hell bent on snatching my soon-to-be-Pulitzer-prize-winning tome out of that joint.
Yet when I got there and saw that one out of the five Address: House of Corrections I had consigned to the bookstore had been sold, I changed my mind.
Why? because a stranger saw my book and based on its’ curbside appeal, chose it over the others and plopped down their hard earned cash on me.
And I hadn’t – as far as i know – facebooked this person or solicited their support on twitter or Youtube. This was just good ole fashion freedom of speech and free enterprise.
It was also a slice of humble pie.
Always the overachiever, that same day, I visited a $1 bookstore to swallow the entire tasty pastry whole.
Moments earlier, I was ready to throw a tantrum, because I wasn’t being treated special enough, only to find myself surrounded by hundreds of “special babies” for sale for a buck.
Shakespeare to Daniele Steele.
Stars.
Scientists.
Scholars alike.
All going for uno dinero.
That’s when it hit me.
Not unlike a first time mother giving birth to her child, a new novelist ain’t reinventing the wheel.
Yes, it feels that way. But the hard-to-swallow truth is all I’ve done as a new author is add a few more thousand words to our collective conversation and consciousness.
Will I change the world? Maybe a sqoch.
Can I make a difference to one reader at a time?
I hope so.
All I pray is that years from now, one day, a new reader will stumble upon my book(s) in a $1 bookstore.
It doesn’t get any more special than that. 🙂
monice mitchell simms 