Coincidences

I don't know what it is about the bookstore where I work, but odd coincidences seem to pop up in the strangest places. Connections you could never have imagined when the event in question first occurred, but which hit you in the face years later with a resounding SPLAT! (The one before the one I'm about to discuss was discovering that one of my coworkers lived in an apartment literally across the street from mine back when we were in college, if you're wondering.)

This week's, though, came about as follows:
1) Bumble into work (exhausted as usual) and get told I have to train a newbie.
2) Teach newbie various bookstore survival skills (including the necessity of reading Not Always Right and making sure that the new books go in the right places so I don't have a hissy fit when I find them in the WRONG place again).
3) Make conversation with newbie (who is, thankfully, intelligent and able to carry on a conversation, 'cause this would all get really boring if she weren't).
4) Discover that newbie attended the school where a friend of mine is the librarian
5) And now the weird bit - she is the very student said friend brought up in a conversation over tea and knitting about writing Harry Potter fan-fiction as a way of breaking in and warming up that writing muscle.

I know, I know, that's a lot of steps, but considering how many of my fellow Burrowers really got going in the fan-fiction arena, it's totally relevant, right? ;-) So I guess my point today is two-fold (which means I get to make a list again, yay!):

(Okay, so it's not that list, but so what?)

1) Whatever the hell you need to write to get writing, WRITE IT. "Even" fan-fiction.
2) Weird coincidences really DO happen, so don't be afraid to write one (as long as it's not the crucial clue in your mystery, of course. Readers don't like that. ;-) ).