The Day I Pretended to Be a Writer

January 6, 2025, Monday, 11:11. That's what it says in the corner of the screen in the photo I took in the cafe that day.

I was waiting in town for Hanka to finish work, and I happened to have my laptop with me. So I went into a cafe, ordered tea, and told myself: I'll pretend to be a writer. Who wouldn't want to feel like a real writer at least once? Sitting in a cafe with a cup of tea and writing a book?

I wrote the first subsections back in early December 2024, at home. This was the first time I wrote somewhere other than my own desk. And right in that cafe, I finished the last subsection of the first chapter. The chapter is called The Life of a Homebody and that subsection is The Turning Point.

I also write in it about a video that gave me a boost back then — [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0](Shia LaBeouf, "Just Do It"). If you've seen it, you know it sounds weird, affected, and unbelievable. A guy shouting into the camera to go after your dream. But back then, it became a mantra for me that I needed in that exact form.

Yet I never had a dream of sitting in a cafe and writing a book. A dream came true that I hadn't even dreamed of. I describe more such fulfilled undreamed dreams in the book, especially in the later chapters — and they are the best things that ever happened to me.

The biggest one of them came to meet me after work that day. I closed my laptop and we went for a walk together in the castle park.