Blank Pages

The hardest thing for a writer, especially one that tries to write every day, is the flickering blank page on the computer. It’s hard to constantly fill that blank page with interesting tidbits and anecdotes without looking desperate, whiney or dumb. Sometimes the page can be a vast wasteland yearning to be filled with some magical prose that helps everybody put their lives and wants into perspective. Other times it’s just a place to write about a dog or the weather or anything else that waltzes through my mind.

It’s daunting though, that evil blank page. It sits so silently; offering no encouragement or confidence. It doesn’t judge, but seems to know when what you’ve placed upon it is crap. I think the paper makes you erase things because you can see that it just isn’t hanging on the paper right. It’s almost an aesthetic choice as much as a literary one at times.

Sometimes I just want to fill these pages with ravings about peanut butter sandwiches or monkey powered submarines. Couldn’t you imagine all the submarines at the bottom of the oceans crammed full of naval monkeys? I know I can. I do try and avoid filling these pages with that type of stuff though. I can’t imagine that it’s all that interesting to the reader. If I do get you to think about Monkey submariners for any length of time, however, I do get a strange sense of satisfaction.  Das Bananaboot.

The void that needs to be filled with words is a tough one to fill. Men and women have spent decades and decades trying to cram if full and I’m sure we’ve only managed a light dusting on the floor.  I want to contribute to that dusting but it’s powerfully hard to manage a new way of doing so every day.  I think we’re all a bit over stimulated anyway, what with the immediate access to news, sports, weather, and entertainment. It’s hard to compete with that type of power, especially if one is struggling to come up with something interesting and original to say. I mean, let’s face it; I’m sure I’m not the first writer to describe a monkey powered submarine. (Although I might be the first to mention it twice)

Even though I’ve gotten this far with this piece about the curse of the empty page, I’m still wrestling with how to close it. I mean, have I really said anything here at all? Does it even deserve a closing or a final summation statement which seems to put the whole piece in perspective or offer some wry take on the world of verse?

I’d like it to have some marvelous closing, something that offers some thought on the blank pages we all face every day and have the ability to overcome and move on to the next awkward empty page. Oh wait, there it was. (Now, how to tie that peanut butter sandwich reference in...)