The Book Shop

I think this is what it feels like to be a writer.

I was walking down the road, and I noticed a book shop. Not just any old shop: This is the one whose proprietor emailed me, and asked me to take in copies of my book.

He's sold one, apparently. He recognised me instantly. I was impressed: My hair is completely different. But he didn't notice the hair until after he'd already recognised me. It was my eyes, he said.

The woman who bought my book walked straight to it, he said. As though she knew exactly what she wanted. Was it one of you lot? Did you buy The Dying of Delight from Portland Books, on Oxford St (Manchester, not London)?

I told the book shop man where I was going: to Highfield Country Park, to search for foundations.

He smiled. He said I looked happy (even though I'd been sobbing in a cinema only half an hour previously). He was nice. I felt like a writer.


___