When I bounced on my great-grandmother’s knee as a 1-year-old, she told me about the legend. She repeated it often; by the time I was 5, the story trickled into my psyche.

At that age, magic is still possible, so the idea that every 100 years a magical snowflake grants a wish to the person who finds it became fact in my mind.

Great-Nana was a rare spirit – she never aged, at least not to me. Until the day of her death at age 98 she was a vibrant busy bee who buzzed from person to person sucking up their personal stories.

By the time I was 20 she regaled me with so many tales I knew that when I “grew up,” I’d be a novelist. But the first fable she shared with me was the story I most believed – a magical snowflake with eight points that granted a wish once a century.

By that age, I knew that snowflakes had six points because water molecules naturally form six-sided (hexagonal) patterns when they freeze into ice. But that didn’t matter – with magic.

So here I am now on a cold winter morning staring into a toy store window, agape. Swaying down from the ceiling of the store on a thin thread is a large snowflake made of white crepe with eight points in an unbelievably gorgeous star-like pattern.

This is it! This is the magical snowflake. I just know it.

At 28 years of age, I’ve been out of college for seven years, out of three bad relationships, and in between teaching jobs. My manuscript landed with four different agents who have received not one bite from an editor or publisher.

So, you know what I’m going to wish, don’t you?

I grab the door handle and stride into the toy-packed tall-ceiled shop. I raise my head toward the hanging floating paper snowflake and yell, “I wish my book is published and sells one million copies!” 

You know how this story ends, don’t you?

Just look at the New York Times best-selling list.