The Blank Page

I am, in part, a writer. I've written four books, three have been published (the fourth was lost when the publisher closed their technical division). I've also written countless reports, proposals, and other various sorts of official documents as part of my job. I've written blogs, random musings, and the occasional "to do" list. Each of these writings all have one thing in common, they start with a blank page.

The blank page is a curse.

The blank page is a promise.

The curse is found in the limitless possibilities of just "where do I start?" My father (a 30+ year professional writer before he died) once said "the worst thing a writer can do is start with just a blank page" What he meant is that the writer's mind has a tendency to edit itself during the creative thought process. Whenever I'm asked by others how to start writing I always answer with advice I follow myself - "just start putting the words down on the paper, you can always move them around later, but get them out of your head and on to the paper".

The promise is found in the same limitless possibilities, with the only restriction being how fast one can transcribe their thoughts, be it handwriting or typing. Stephen King wrote in his book "On Writing" to "write what you know". He went on to say "for example, if you're a plumber, write about a plumber on a spaceship." The idea here is to stretch the boundaries and not limit yourself, but write what you know and the words will almost naturally find themselves on paper.

The blank page is perfect in it's possibilities but that does not mean we must be perfect in our marking of this blank page. The joy is not found in the white spaces between the words, but the words themselves with the emotion, curiosity, understanding, and wonder they bring.