There's no gold in them thar hills

So, we went for a little family outing Saturday...diggin' for gold, so to speak, at a used bookstore. It was packed, and the aisle with titles like How to Write and Not Sound Like a Moron and You Can Make Up Stuff that Other People Want to Read and Pay For!!! was crowded with other hopeful miners.

When I finally managed to maneuver my double stroller (yes, double) to the desired spot, I discovered a sadly lacking variety of titles. Only stuff like Maybe You're Not the Worst Writer and Buy This Book so This Author's Children Can Eat was left. Also unnerving was the fact that none of these books really looked like they'd been used much. What seemed more likely was that they'd been bought by some hopeful loser who read two pages and gave up, then traded it for a DVD of All Dogs go to Heaven. That person is still on his couch, now watching reruns of "Home Improvement."

The only shelf I didn't scan was the bottom one; however, bending down to look would have been impossible: I was hemmed in on every side by oblivious fellow pseudo-intellectuals ("they're called 'readers,' Dad"); the aisle was so narrow, and I'm ...not. So while there may have been priceless titles awaiting my perusal on the bottom shelf, they escaped unnoticed.

It was upon my removal from that aisle that I developed my plan: rather than actually writing something worthwhile, and going through all the rigamarole of studying books on how to write, and going to conferences, and getting an agent and all that, I'm just going to self-publish some stuff about a dwarf who has to return some jewelry to a volcano, and cram it down defenseless children's throats. And I'm going to draw the cover art myself, to save money. And it's going to be a trilogy, so I'll make three times as much money on it.

Success and fame, here I come!!