A day of being in The Universal Flow:

I go to the laundromat with my clothes early in the morning. While they wash I go to a cafe for some breakfast and journal writing. I go back to the laundromat and call my sister. She is heading to her manicure appointment. She’ll call me back in an hour, she says.

I go home, grab dirty sheets and towels and take my sweaty self back out in the humidity to the laundromat. As I’m leaving my apartment, the exterminator comes for his monthly maintenance appointment. Extraordinary timing. I finally get back to the laundromat and decide to read until my sister calls back.

I am reading Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, specifically the chapter called “Contemporary Plot Techniques.” And so I come across this: A … form of the character-driven plot is the journey of self-discovery … [it] is like the hero’s journey, except the prize to be won is not an object that will save the world but a transformation that will save one soul. Alas, I now have the answer when someone asks what kind of fiction I’m writing.

While I am reveling in this, my sister calls back. We chat. She leaves for the mall. I bring my clothes home.

I begin writing a synopsis of my book, delightfully implementing some of the things I’ve read and excited that I feel like I read the exact thing I needed at the exact time I needed it. Meanwhile, my sister is out shopping to her heart’s content.

Hours later, I take a break from writing. My sister calls. She has just had a shopping trip where almost every store she visited held some kind of pleasant surprise. She wonders if she manifested it. I tell her she is in The Universal Flow.

Me, too.