The Blank Page

The blank page strikes fear into writers, but too often for the wrong reason.

These writers (perhaps you?) see it as something to fill with cleverness and excellence that will excite the senses and convert the masses. They consider it a space to stuff with characters and plots and subplots and twists and tension and conflict and resolution.

To them, the blank page is a empty thing that demands to be filled. And when it doesn’t get its way, it mocks them. It belittles them. It questions their writing talent. Their commitment. Their masculinity. Their femininity. Their parenting skills. Their love of Hemingway. Their selfish use of oxygen.

The blank page is evidence of an empty heart. Or mind. Or (gasp) soul. This is a terrifying idea.

And so they scrounge and scrape for story scraps in their ubiquitous (and surprisingly destitute) “ideas” folder and shop for characters at the local Starbucks. They read Rowlings or Robinson for inspiration, then stare with glassy-eyed panic at textured walls, praying for a seed of brilliance to reveal itself in the randomness.

All to satisfy the need to fill the page, to deny the yawning abyss of irrelevance and purposelessness its prey.

I think they’re scared of the wrong thing.

The page isn’t empty at all. It’s absolutely packed. It’s filled from edge to edge with every book, every movie, every song, every tear-filled breakup, every hope-filled phone call, every sin, every grace – every single experience and thought and dream and bliss and agony the writer has ever known.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t this just a matter of semantics? I say the page is empty, you say it’s full – either way, I still have to choose what to type and that’s a daunting thing.”

It’s not semantics. It’s a completely different way of thinking.

If the blank page is empty, you need to find things to fill it. Go ahead and put a sentence on the page. It’s still pretty empty, isn’t it. Okay, go find more stuff. Hurry, before that solitary sentence begs for the mercy of the eraser. What’s that? You’re stuck? You must be looking in the wrong place.

But if the blank page is full, everything you need is right there. And isn’t it, really? Aren’t all your story ideas (the good ones and the terrible ones) – or at the very least, the seeds for those ideas – already a part of who you are? If not, maybe you’re going about this writing thing all wrong. Ever heard of “write what you know”? That means write from who you are. Don’t “try to be a writer.” Just write. Look at the stuff that’s already in you – the stuff that’s already there on the page – and circle it. Underline it. Re-arrange it.

Uncover it.

The blank page isn’t empty.

It’s full of you.

Now that’s scary.