I spent most of my life wanting to get away from my hometown of Valparaiso, IN. I guess I craved adventure, but adventure is not what I found. I spent ten years (18-28) traveling the country, living in different states for brief periods of time. Nowhere else felt like home. It wasn’t until I experienced elsewhere that I realized Valpo is my favorite place. That’s why I want to establish myself there for the long haul.
About a year ago I started selling used books on Amazon. They make you put a name for your business so I just popped in the name of a bookstore in one of my books, The Quivering Quill Bookshop. I still adore that name, but now feel it’s too long and when you think of quivering on its own, you don’t really think of writing literature. So I’ve shortened it to:
The Quill Bookshop
My dad and I toyed around with the idea of opening our own bookshop in downtown Valparaiso. There was a time when I was really motivated and excited, but that died away and I became less interested in selling books online for such little profit. Eventually, I turned away from the business and put no effort into expanding it at all. If I sold a book, which happened maybe two or three times a month, I’d ship it, but that was about it.
But the dream is back on!
I owe this inspiration to God of course and also to working on “The Happiness Project”. March is all about aiming higher with work. Because it told me to blog, I’ve been blogging Monday-Friday the entire month. Because of blogging, I’ve rediscovered my love for writing and reading and all things book related (not that I ever lost it, but haven’t participated much in the writing part of it lately.) And because I’m moving out of my apartment next month, and books are extremely heavy to move, I was again motivated to sell a lot of them. I updated the name of the store on Amazon, I updated the prices on Amazon, and wouldn’t you know it…I sold three books within 24 hours!
What really inspires me, something I need to hold onto every day, is that vision of me in my own bookshop. I can picture myself unlocking the door in the morning and turning on the lights, the smell of wood and old books. I can see myself turning on the coffee pots to brew fresh wonderful smelling coffee for my customers.
(Wow! Just sold another book as I was typing this!)
Ok, back to daydreaming. I can see pouring myself the first cup of coffee of the day as I straighten the pillows on the comfy couches and chairs happy customers use to read in. I see myself making new friends with people in the town who love reading as much as I do. These visions I will keep in my heart from now on and they will be enough to carry me through the next years as I sell books online, pay off my student loans, and start saving for my own bookshop!
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