Hello!

More creative writing, because I have to write a lot of blog posts in one go and as I’m writing this I have 2 days to write about 2 weeks of blog posts! And all this practise short stories are really fun and really good for me creatively!

A longer title for this one would be ‘I always take the book that’s near the bottom and whoops this pile may be a bit too tall and you turn around just in time to see the stack of books fall on top of me’. It sounds cute right?

I love my job – working at an independent book store mostly means serving people, talking about books and restocking shelves. It’s amazing – while I’m at university, it’s the best job I could ask for.

We’re not manic busy most of the time – we usually have one or two customers in at a time, but everyone’s really nice and it’s surprising how many kids we get in. Their idols are posting ‘hipster’ photos of book stores on Instagram and then they’re interested – if it gets kids interesting in books, I have no objection.

I’d just finished a reading group with a bunch of toddlers – the store owner lets me read my stories to them while I’m working on getting my young adult book published. I’m studying English Literature with Creative Writing so juggling everything is fun, but I’m on my way to getting an agent and it’s very exciting.

I was just making sure all the children were getting collected when I saw a dark haired boy with big, square framed glasses looking at me. He glanced away with a blush, connecting again with the book in his hands. I made sure all the kids had been collected and went to the cashier to tell her she could go for her break – she worked for four hours on a Saturday afternoon and hated it, she barely deserved a break.

I checked over what she’d done and glanced around the store to gauge how many customers we had – I turned to go back to a pile of books I’d been putting on the shelves just in time to see the dark haired boy yanking a book from the bottom of the pile and the rest of the books toppling onto him.

Instantly I ran over, picking up all the books and apologising profusely, stacking them up again and pulling him to his feet. He blushed again, keeping a tight hold of the book he’d wanted. It was a first edition Dickens novel that we’d got from a lovely old lady across town who liked to donate her books to us. We took her out to dinner as thanks.

I’m basically going to take over this store whilst becoming a writer, it’s a life plan.

“Don’t worry about it, I should have waited till you’d put it on the shelves.” He spluttered, clutching the book to his chest as I began to put the other titles away to save anyone else having the same trouble.

“You big into classics?” I asked – I’m good at striking up conversation with customers, but trying to maintain eye contact with him whilst doing my job was proving difficult.

He nodded. “I like the style, especially his. Dickens, that is. I think he was a genius.”

“He’s been called that before.” I replied with a smile. “I struggle to really connect with Dickens – I prefer some of the more modern titles, the more casual writing style. I don’t want to have to really concentrate on a book to understand it – I just want to be absorbed, you know?” I explained with a smile but he was still blushing.

He nodded. “I like having to read it twice to understand it, I connect with it more that way.” He shrugged, following me back to the tills as I finished stacking.

“Is that everything then?” I asked, glancing at the one book in his hands. He nodded, putting it on the counter as I bagged it up for him. We said goodbye and I didn’t think I’d see the dark-haired boy with glasses again.

A few days later I was having a conversation with my boss about starting a creative writing class – my work load was easing up for the summer and I was hitting a bit of writers block, I thought perhaps writing creatively with other people might help. He wasn’t too keen – we didn’t really have the space for it but I was saying that the shop next door had just gone bust so if we bought that was could expand it into a classroom environment but he didn’t think it would generate enough profit to be economically beneficial.

So when we heard another crash of books, I knew it would be the ones I’d left and I was surprised to see the same young man peering out at me from under the books.

My boss rolled his eyes and told me to handle it, so I stacked up the books and smiled apologetically at the customer I’d squashed twice now.

“Don’t be sorry, it was my stupidity.”

“Which one have you gone for this time?” I asked. He held up Lord of the Rings.

“Thought I’d try a bit of modern fantasy. I spoke to you a few days ago, you probably don’t remember, you just got me thinking.”

“Of course I remember.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I kind of hoped you’d stay longer so we could talk about more books. I’ve never really had someone disagree with me so educatedly before.” I smiled at him, more genuinely than I smiled at the other customers. He was blushing again, smiling back at me with these dimples and freckles. He was cute.

“Maybe we could talk over coffee sometime?” He mumbled, pushing his glasses up his nose nervously.

I nodded. “I’d really like that. One minute.” I held up one finger, jogging over to the till, grabbing a pen and jogging back to him. I took his hand, scrawling my number on the back of his palm.

“I’m Kaleb.” He sighed happily, as if relieved.

“Sally.” I smiled, holding onto his hand for just a little bit too long.

Yeah this definitely isn’t just my fantasy written into an original story. I definitely don’t daydream about being a writer and I definitely don’t love old book stores or anything. Also cute blushy guys with glasses that are into books. Not all my weaknesses in one go.

I thought this was adorable, I’ve not felt this creative in a very long time. I love it.

This time in two weeks I’ll be at Summer In The City (a YouTube convention in London), so I won’t be home but I’ll be back in England with WiFi and a decent shower so I’ll be back online and soon to be blogging again! I can’t wait to talk to you in real time, rather than the past.

Hope you’re having an awesome Summer, happy August!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx




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