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Letter I Never Mailed 1/23/2013 10:01:38 AM
Motivation finds me. I see you sitting here in the same soft chair, day in day out, oblivious to the world, lost in a book. A brief upward swing of your head tells me I’ve slipped past you unnoticed.
How real the internal world is to those of us addicted to ink and page-turning. Absorbed by characters and plot, we live on temporary planes of existence. No intruders allowed. We interact exclusively with the images inside our heads.
Your long protracted sigh catches my ear. A book rests for a moment in your lap as you scan the area, but not long enough to interrupt the flow of time within your mind. Like you, I am impressed by the power of words. They change me.
Words are an author’s necklaces; strings of sentences, beads of paragraphs, links of pages woven into multiple strands of fact or plot. They sparkle and fire emotions. Words lie upon the page glowing with a luster that brings a lump to the reader’s throat. Images either hold a reader spellbound or cause him to disengage. The “right” words are beams of printed steel.
You have inspired me to comprehend why I came to the bookstore today—to be convinced to turn my computer on and try again.
I am determined to string words together that will connect you to me. I will listen to the silences that surround me then follow my thoughts as they skitter across the surface of my computer screen. I will kidnap your mind and discover the ancient part of your soul lying beneath your plaid flannel shirt.
