Today was a good day, more or less, and the less parts will be left out for the sake of not ruining a perfectly good post. Ahem.

I met an old high school friend for lunch, as he happened to be in the area for work (which I assume means his company also employs yetis as there are an abundance of those living in these here mountains). We had relatively tasty food and caught up, talking about nothing and everything just as people who haven’t seen each other for greatly extended periods of time often will. It was an enjoyable time that, in hindsight, seems to have gone by too quickly. I’m immensely fond of visitors as well as lunch outings, even if they contribute to my financial stress more than they alleviate it. Instead of heading home immediately after lunch I stopped by Barnes & Noble. I had nothing in mind in terms of purchases, but I hadn’t wandered around a bookstore in far longer than I care to admit and so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I ran into the problem I often run into at Barnes & Noble, or any other bookstore for that matter. I had an idea of the kind of book I’d like to buy, if I were to end up buying something, but I couldn’t quite put a name or specific author to it. The end result involved a fair bit of wandering around the store without aim or idea of where I should be looking. I eventually left without buying anything, which is just as well as I shouldn’t be buying too much for myself. I’ve been given the dreaded pre-birthday warning, and god help me if I choose to ignore that.

Part of the problem is this: as a writer, I have stories I’d like to read, and I know I’d like to read them, but some of them are stories I just haven’t written yet. Looking for some sort of comparable tale only works so well, especially when I can’t think of an author or title or genre even. It’s a big part of what drives me to continue writing. So I can one day hope such a story sits among the shelves of a bookstore, waiting to meet the expectations of a story-hungry reader.