You've had this happen, I'm sure. You need something and you don't know where to look when suddenly it falls into your lap, or almost. I've been doing a lot of research for the screenplay I'm working on. I need background material for some characters and I have to get inside their heads. I can't start writing dialogue until I know what they might say and what they'll sound like. I've been progressing quite well but with one of the characters, a real person, I have to know a lot more. I checked some of his novels (he was a writer) but I couldn't find what I needed. I member hearing that he had written a book of letters, so I checked out a different area in my local library, and I do mean local.

We have an active, functioning library in my apartment building, supplied by the residents, and kept up to date. As new books come in, the collection is culled and old books are sent off to book sales. In the biography section I found an old book. I took it up to my apartment and when I sat down to open the book, a paperback, it cracked and fell into three sections as hardened glue and brittle paper fell on me. One of the sections, written in the first person by my character, has everything I need, from the right era in his life, to words I can put in his mouth. Wow! Isn't it lucky no one threw it out? Isn't it lucky I found it? Isn't it lucky it opened at the right section? Isn't this a nice day?

For which, thanks.