What if I were to write as if my life depended on it? I wrote in a small notebook I keep on my night stand.
A day or two ago I was in a store waiting to pay for a few items I had picked up. As always I had joined what I thought would be the shortest line. This time the shortest line happened to be at the only till that also sold lottery tickets. The woman being served was in fact buying lottery tickets. She started by cashing in a few old tickets on which she had won a free ticket in the same lottery. No problem there, but then she couldn’t decide which of the many lotteries available she should spend her money on. So there was a lot of humming and hawing as to which lotteries she wanted to focus on, how many tickets to buy, and so on.
Five minutes later she was still at it, and I was still first in line, after her. Other shoppers had joined me in this shortest line and quickly abandoned it for the one other till that was open, which had a longer lineup but was moving. I was stuck in this one because, well, I was next in line. But, I was in no particular hurry and besides, I was fascinated by this very serious middle-aged woman buying lottery tickets as if her life depended on it. When she finally finished, her wallet was $89 lighter.
After she left I handed my purchases to the clerk, who had remained good-humoured throughout.
“Just this,” I remarked, “or wait, hmm, I don’t know, maybe I should buy a lottery ticket or two…”
She could see I was joking and smiled, but gave me the pitch anyway. “Well, Super Lotto has the biggest payout right now, $27 million,” she said, adding that she usually buys a ticket when there’s a really big payout.
“Do you win?” I asked.
She laughed. “No, but you never know, somebody has to.”
Behind me, a male customer waiting his turn at the till chuckled. He had obviously overheard our conversation. “I used to pray and pray that I would win the lottery,” he twinkled, “but I never did. One day I heard a big voice. 'James,' it boomed, 'listen to me. You’ve been praying for many years that you would win the lottery. Lately I’ve heard you grumbling about me not listening to your prayers and how maybe it’s true that I’m dead, or at least deaf. But hey, I’ve heard you all along, James. I’ve been trying to accommodate you and I’ve figured out what the problem is. So help me out a bit here, ok? Buy a damn ticket!'”
I think about that. Yes, I wanna be a writer, I wanna be a published writer, I wanna be a well-known and money-making writer. God says to me: “Help me out here, write something and don’t shelve it, don’t say, 'It’s not good enough,' don’t say, 'What if I fail, what if I get rejected?' Send it out. Give me a hand, I can't do it without your help.”
God is powerless without my help?! Guess I had it the wrong way round.
And boy, does that put me squarely in the driver’s seat!
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