"The Silent Cry"

"The Silent Cry"

© 2008 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.

From 7 July, 2008

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One of my manuscripts was delivered to a publisher at 1:12 PM on Saturday. I got 5 pages done on "The Elephant Crusade" today. I'm very, very tired. I would like to do more writing tonight.

I'm not well tonight, though. I'm sicker than shit. Tired. Exhausted. Upset. Hot. Light-headed. Cramps. I'll forgo details of my bathroom experiences.

Struggling to write is an horrible affair. When you want to write, when you have to write, and you don't you let yourself alone down. That's ten thousand times worse than letting down a boss.

I'm very tired.

My cat is at my feet. She seems so happy, so content. Her belly's full, her eyes are closed; she's busily purring. Sometimes I wish I was a cat. I wonder if T.S. would like me as a cat or as a writer. He'd probably say I'm more useful as a cat.

She looked at me just now and yawned. I wonder if that would be T.S.'s reaction. Her eyes are closed again, her purring louder. How dare I think I'm a failure when I am so loved? How dare I?

The year is half over and so far it has been filled with intense, constant writing. I fear stating that even here, silently upon the page. I fear jinxing myself.

Writing is the silent cry. Only the scritch-scritch-scritch of the pen or the tap-tap-tap of a keyboard can be heard. It's only when I have your attention after wowing you with explosions, pulling forth your wonderment with premium, high-grade octane-fueled action and insanity that I'll lower the volume, invade your head, do the Vulcan mind-meld with your inner voice and say what I must softly. No one around you will hear a damned thing, but I will trumpet as loudly as a big brass band stompin' at the Savoy for you. And more than any other message I will likely say to you: Thank you. I once was alive and now am again because of you. I live forever because you chose to read me.

And so to write is to live. Even in writing comes my invasive hope to escape mortality. Writing is my Dancing Water. Failure to write is to die.

Tonight, sick and feeling incapable of writing, I die a little.