You Should Write a Book

   A friend  is going through a tough time. Her current circumstances are aggravating to depression and anxiety she currently lives with. Once in awhile we text each other. If I sense that she's having a bad day, I try to send her some positive messages. Things that can build her up. After one such exchange she suggested that I should use my store of knowledge,kindness, and ability and love of writing to make a little inspirational book.
   It's an interesting thought. C has a lot of beautiful pictures of flowers and landscapes that he's taken over the years. It could be pretty cool to do something like that.
   It's not the first time that someone has said I should write a book. A couple of people have suggested that compiling the best of these columns that I've written might make a good book.
   I toyed with that idea for awhile. I could call the book 'Sophie's Greatest Hits' and put a picture of my Louisville Slugger bat on the front. I thought I could arrange like Bob Schieffer's book, 'America', where the the chapters have a collection of columns all on similar topics. I thought about how cool it would be to have a book that I could say that I wrote. I would be a real writer, a professional.
  Then the coldly practical side spoke up. Mild, family friendly writing like mine really doesn't sell. There's no sex, no violence and no bad language. I don't live some teeming metropolis like New York where there are loads of quirky people to interest readers.
  Then another voice in my head said, if Erma Bombeck could write about being a housewife in the 60s, 70s and 80s and be successful then why couldn't I do the same?
  The practical voices answered. She had a column in a newspaper before she had her books. Newspapers hardly sell anymore and I doubt if any of them have columns like the one Erma Bombeck used to write.
  Another reason why I'm hesitant to actually attempt to write a book is because I don't want to be like Bernie, a guy in my class at school. Bernie was a good hockey player and decided he was going to go to the U of M where he would be a star hockey player. That didn't happen. He may have been a great player on the local teams, but there were many that were a lot better than him playing at college. He made the best of it and became the mascot and wrote a book about his time as a mascot. I don't think it did very well. His parents owned a furniture store in town and there was a time when, if you bought something from the store, you got a free book.
   The suggestion to make an inspirational book is intriguing. I have found places on the internet that give directions for making small handmade books. One of them uses a ribbon binding, which looks kind of pretty. Maybe I could make one for my friend.....