*shudder*
Oh no! Writers, beware, it's a BLANK PAGE!!!
*runs away screaming like Kevin Home Alone*
*sigh*
OK calm again.
I'm one of those people who have a seriously schizophrenic love-hate relationship with blank pages (or new notebooks, or pages/word files). There's nothing quite like that smooth crispness of the new, virgin field to sow your inky seeds upon, to spread and populate and live lives of their own.
And yet.... only too easy for those little bits of ink to get away from you. Blots appear, words get smeared and then - OMFG - the ink runs out. Everything goes blank.
Where's that Muse when you need him?
Oh, that's right. He's on holiday.
So I'm here stuck with a blank page, a head full of ideas and a mish-mash of characters screaming at me or just sulking in the corners of my mind, with no clue where to start. Sometimes I wish I could paint, or even draw a reasonably life-like stick figure, so I could get on paper exactly what my ideas look like. My father can do that. My sister, too. (paint, that is, not draw life-like stick figures though I'm sure they can do that, too)
Instead, I get to paint with words.
Only sometimes the paint dries out, or the paper isn't quite what I'm looking for that day. Maybe I'd do better with yellow paper, or white, or lined, squared, plain, whatever colour/texture/type I happen to NOT have at hand.
You know what that's called? Let me spell it for you.
P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N
otherwise known as
WASTING TIME in EPIC PROPORTIONS.
I'm really good at that.
If I were a psychologist, I'd probably tell myself I have a deeply rooted fear of failure. So in order not to fail at something (or rather not do as well as I'd like), I don't do it. I sabotage myself by giving in to the BPP (Blank Page Phenomenon, do keep up).
NO MORE!
This year, my resolution is to STOP WASTING TIME and FINISH WHAT I START.
There, I've said it. You're all my witnesses.
What about you? Do you suffer from BPP? What stops you from being the writer you know you are? Any coping mechanisms you've developed?
Go on, do share!
21 comments:
Excellent resolution, Tessa. You know what? Let's be resolution buddies, since your resolution is also one of MY major resolutions and we both can't help but scream when we see that awful blank page!
Just so you know, this post made me "hahaha!" :P
~TRA
http://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com
*grins*
hehe yes lets be resolution buddies (with leave to shout at each other for NOT complying with said resolution)
You can do it!
And maybe you can draw reasonably un-life-like stick figures instead?
I suffer from TDMI phenomenon. Too Damn Many Ideas. I kinda get hung up even before I get to the blank page. It's a curse. *sniffles*
Best of luck to you with your anti-BPP resolution this year, good lady!
Cheers!
I am intimately acquainted with Blank Page Phenomenon, and you are spot on: if I really dig down I realize that the terror the blank page strikes in my heart (beneath the wide-eyed wonder and possibility) comes from the fact that by trying to put my words down, I will muck something up.
Usually I get over it by remembering that all first drafts suck (and if yours don't, we can't be friends ;) ). Then I drink too much sweet tea, eat too much popcorn, and waste a little more time. THEN...then I suck it up and just start writing. Once words start to flow, that fear of screwing things up gets pushed to the background for the most part.
Yes, I can relate to the BPP and even Simon's TMDI syndrome (that's why I keep a journal so I don't forget them and can go back and pick the next one I want to write). But Tessa, dear, your writing is very nice so you shouldn't have any confidence issues. Except I'd like to be able to read something finished. How many novels do you have in the works? Finish one so I can read it for you as you've been so kind to read mine!
I wasn't going to set any resolutions this year but the anti-procrastination one might be a good one for me.
I totally relate to the BPP, Tessa! You wouldn't think it but once upon a time I was petrified of blank pages. So so scared.
You know what helped? Over-exposure. I actually love them now, go figure, because even when I'm in the middle of a WIP I start the day on a blank page. Everyday.
After a while I realised that the blank page was sort of fun, after a longer time I discovered I loved it. I loved the way a blank page is like a blank slate, I loved how full of possiblities it was. I could go anywhere or do anything.
I do have to confess I am the MOST extreme pantser ever though, so the freedom of the blank page has won me over to such an extent that I need to start on one or not at all.
And, like Mara said, your writing is excellent. It's a joy to read!
And I KNOW the feeling of being afraid to fail. When I get in such a panic about falling on my face I have to admit I like to remember famous quotes on it like "our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail" and "never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat" They may sound sort of weak but they give me the courage to try. Everybody fails, failure is what makes success all the more sweeter.
:)
HOOO-BOY. That was a long comment.
Great resolution!
I can relate to BPP. One way I try to avoid it is by keeping the word pages smaller so that it doesn't hold so many words.
I love blank pages! It means I have a lot of time before I make my plot so convoluted that it needs a billion rounds of edits!
I actually love a crisp blank page!! And brand new notebooks!! And I love filing them up too!!! Sometimes it may take me a minute to get going, but then I do and it's hard to stop!!
Good luck!!
On Tuesday night I stared at the last few lines previously written, scrolled to a new blank page, and sat there staring at it, trying to figure out where to start again. The netbook shut down and never got one word written.
I had a Wednesday submission deadline. Hmm, should I say I was way late . .
Love your muse. Wish I was there with him.
.........dhole
I salivate over blank pages. If it's a notebook, I imagine my pen or pencil scratching brilliance into its surface. If it's a Word doc, I feel free to let go and let it all come out. What blocks me most of the time is a partially filled page. I'm paralyzed by choosing the wrong path once I've started the journey. I'm disgusted with the melodramatic childlike prose that just came out. Bleah.
This is the second blog today that's yearned for a graphic way to get ideas out of one's brain. I can absolutely relate to that. I've actually reached for pen and paper and tried to sketch a scene before. Turns out to be nothing more than procrastination most of the time, though. There was that one time I made an elaborate floor plan for the house in my story, though. That was pretty awesome.
The other blogger (Where Sky Meets Ground) wished they could project their thoughts onto a fifty-foot screen. I've longed for that, too. I feel the story inside. Why can't I just concentrate and have it spring forth, fully formed?
But blank page... You've inspired me to go open one in Word and see what happens.
-Caroline
WOW!
You guys are great! I LOVE YOU ALL!
THANK YOU for taking the time to speak to me today!!!
LOL Tessa I just posted about empty pages the other day! The disease is spreading!
Great post! While I haven't found a solution to the blank page in writing I did find something interesting to do against the blank canvas in painting. While most of the time I had to use white gesso, I found a black gesso and it somehow helped to start with a color other than white. Occasionally I would add a light color to white gesso to change it to get a similar thing going. Not sure I'd want to write white font on black pages but who knows. Might need to try it some day.
oh good. i'm not the only one who suffers from fear of failing. and it's not that i don't like blank pages or documents - it's just the blank document called "sequel 3rd draft" that makes me want to run away like Kevin.
Good luck with your resolution. I am completely blank so far this year. I blame it on that one submission that is out there waiting to be answered. Will it bring me hope or dash my dreams? Maybe I don't want them to respond? I don't know. Eventually the voices in my head will want out and I will have to obey.
Great post.
Oh honey, do I hear you on that one. The whole no-more-procrastination thing was my resolution last year. I was surprisingly successful at squashing some of it, so I know it can be done.
I'll be cheering for you!
Hey, Tessa, that's the perfect resolution for me too, which is not to procrastinate, but not just on my writing...on everything else too, which includes schoolwork of course.
I think it's a fine resolution for yourself to conquer that blank page, which all authors have to suffer seeing at one point in their lives or another.
So, don't worry, you're not the only one! Just write on!
@ Dawn Embers: You inspired me. I saw my husband looking at me like I was mad, but I went to Page Layout in Word and made my document have Victorian lavender pages and used a gradient so they looked like bent pages in a book. I used a fancy font. It looked pretty and ridiculous and not at all professional or dignified, but it worked. I managed to come up with a draft of the storybook-style scene I needed to write, set in a Victorian mansion.
Thanks!
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