Spell-binding. Enchanting. Magical.

I skim the tips of my fingers along the spines of candy-colored novels, occasionally pulling one free of its fellows to read the generous “blurbs” from household-name authors and respected critics. The words we use to describe—and incentivize—the craft of writing wash over me. So-and-so from The New York Times calls this volume “charming,” while what’s-her-name with the recent film adaptation lauds another as “truly magical.”

        I am at least as guilty as the next bibliophile of fetishizing and romanticizing the practice of storytelling, though at least I was not doing so solely for profit. As a child, I regarded writing as everything from ethereal escape to my One True Destiny. While I couldn’t technically slay dragons or traverse the vastness of space myself, I learned through reading that maybe, one day, I could help others do it. And as I grew older, I expected writing to save me in much the same way that my peers awaited love or wealth or their parents' approval to save them. We all have our panacea, I suppose, that elusive something that we believe will make all our disparate puzzle pieces snap into place.

        All of this narratorial-styled self-reflection runs through my head in the space between one step and the next, the overly loud scuff of my shoe against casino style carpet carrying through paper-scented air. Unlike most other writers I know, bookstores have never brought me any particular comfort; I always felt like a wild animal striding through a zoo, expected to appreciate its tameness. Today, at least, my visit has a purpose.

        After scanning the shelves for a long moment, pretending not to need a lightning-speed recitation of the alphabet to determine if R comes before or after L, I find it. “New!” proclaims a bright green tag just below eye-level. “Local author!” announces its navy blue neighbor. There, sitting natural as anything between the works of Reave and Ross, is my book. I reach out with one finger to trace the raised type of the title, of my own name, like one might stroke the petal of an especially delicate flower.

        It is nothing like I expected. There is no drumroll, no fireworks, no golden light from above shining on my face. No magic. There’s just the low-level chatter of bookstore patrons—utterly unaware of the ground stubbornly not shifting beneath my feet—and, appropriately, the dulcet tones of Indigo Girls’ “When We Were Writers” piped in over the loudspeaker.

        I’m yanked from my reverie—my disappointment—by the less than comfortable acquaintance of an elbow with my ribs. A woman is, apparently, trying to push past me to access the shelves. I have taken three steps back before I even register which book she’s reaching for. The words “I’m sorry” die a swift death on my lips, replaced with a slightly strangled exclamation of “It’s mine.”

        “What?” The customer turns, looking half-confused and wholly affronted.

        “It’s mine,” I repeat, this time modulating my voice into a more businesslike facsimile of itself (a tone which, according to my sister, I reserve for my editor and our father). The woman looks between me and the book in her hand and pulls the volume close to her chest. I add a smile, which does nothing to put her at ease. My error smacks me in the forehead half a second before my own hand.

        “No, that’s not—” I take a deep breath and start over. “I wrote it.” She looks at me dubiously, understandably unconvinced that the bumbling lunatic before her possesses the mastery of the English language requisite for novel-length prose, but flips open the back cover anyway. I watch her compare me to my own photo and squirm under the scrutiny, willing myself to better resemble the glossy black and white portrait.

        The moment she recognizes me, she pounces. In an instant, she’s telling me about how her daughter Laura is in publishing—“Maybe you know her?”—and how the buzz for my book was “so good” and would I “please, please” sign her copy? I say I will, of course, and pat my pockets in search of a pen, simultaneously riffling through my memory to see if any of my publisher’s crash course in meeting readers actually stuck. It didn’t. My first book signing is scheduled for later in the week—at this bookstore, actually—but that doesn’t mean I’m mentally prepared yet.

        The woman asks a dozen more questions as if we’re old friends before finally departing, assuring me that she and Laura will be first in line at my signing. When I’m alone again, I slump against the shelves, my chest aching like I’ve just run a mile while holding my breath. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for her interest and support, but our interaction had lent unneeded support to my worst suspicion: writing is not magic. For all that it is beautiful and creative and challenging, it is also mundane. It’s my job.

        Ever since I started carrying around a notebook like a spare hard drive for my brain (sometime in the Axe-body-spray-clouded hell of middle school), I have hoped and dreamed about this moment: the authorial version of my name up in lights. But seeing my name there on the cover in shiny print, adding my over-practiced rock star signature to a reader’s book, was never going to suddenly heal all the broken parts of me. The art and science of writing is just that: art, science, discipline, but not alchemy.

        There is a part of me that is always lurking in the shadows, waiting patiently for me—us?—to be let down so it can shout: “Look at this! Nothing is ever as beautiful as you think it is!” And yet another part of me whispers: “It is.” In fact, even as I turn to leave the store, that part of me is itching to pull the notepad from the back pocket of my jeans and get down to the gritty, real, maybe unmagical, beautiful hard work of writing again.