I work at a bookstore.

Or at least, I have been for the last three months and will continue to for the forseeable future.

It’s not something I’m intending to make a real career out of (though, at this point in my twenty-something ridiculous “millenial” life, I understand that nothing can be known for certain in regards to what you do to pay bills and buy food) and I know I haven’t really been there long enough to be any kind of expert on the field. Believe me, I’m sure if you asked my managers about my knowledge of the bookselling business they would, at best, make a sympathetic face and remark that, hey, at least I’m not afraid to ask questions….constantly.

I do think, though, that I’ve seen enough in my short time there to know a few things. One of these things being that people will read blogs about almost anything and anyone. There is an audience out there for the weirdest niches and broadest life experiences and, it seems, if enough people click links that lead to your blog every day, anyone with a keyboard can get a book deal.

I am not the kind of douche that sits here resenting people who get published though. Really. Good for them. The lady who turned Twilight into Fifty Shades of Smut is making a lot of money and I congratulate her on that. James Patterson is, I think, a quadrazillionaire at this point and may or may not still be writing his own books but, whatever the case, well done. Even Lena Dunham, who is becoming even richer than she was raised to be by writing a book about being white, rich, and “so quirky”….congratulations. I mean it. People who rub me the wrong way and/or literally grate on me as though I am a block of parmesan can keep getting published and I refuse to resent them.

I will, however, hold them up as self-motivating examples. Each day, as I shelve questionable romance novels, laughably melodramatic young adult books, and blogger-book after blogger-book, I remind myself, “If these people can get published….I’m definitely good enough to write whatever I damn well please online and not second guess myself.

Like I said, nothing is certain for my generation, career-wise, except maybe that we’ll all spend a lot of time crying over whether our salary will cover our student loan bills or not. I can’t proudly and defiantly claim that I’m going to be a famous writer, as I did in my youth. It could happen, it could not. I can, however, say for certain that I am good enough to put words in sentences and let other people read them.

Look, ma, I’m blogging.