Be it the first page on Microsoft Word or the first fresh sheet in that new leather bound notebook, I always find myself staring at that empty space with an expression as blank as the page itself. I even suffered from it when writing this article, I suffer when starting an essay question and I suffer worst of all when starting to write creatively. No matter what the subject, no matter what my level of confidence is on the subject matter, I will let my fingers hover over the keys of my laptop, my pen linger over the paper and I will remain frozen in that position for at least ten minutes.
A combination of insecurity and confusion overwhelms me. My hesitation to type comes, not from a lack of ideas – I think you’ll find my imagination is constantly in overdrive, spitting out ideas like a rabbit in heat – but rather from something a lot more sinister.
The fear of the blank page.
One of the most dangerous phenomena a writer can experience. A fear that can cripple an aspiring writer before they’ve even begun. It is this fear that words written can never be unwritten, that the words that come tumbling out of the mind will not make sense, not convey what was supposed to be conveyed or simply not be good enough.
I experience that fear way too often than I would care to admit. It doesn’t even matter what I’m writing. A poem, an article, the ever feared ‘Chapter One’ of a novel, a goddamn shopping list! If it requires me to write something down on a blank piece of paper, you can pretty much guarantee that I will wonder how I should write it, how I should set it out, what font to use, what font size, should I leave a line between my paragraphs, should I indent my paragraphs with a tab to display clearly that a new paragraph is starting right there? So many pointless and irrelevant questions swirl through my head when I start to write. Sometimes I let those questions and that fear beat me. Sometimes I end up slamming the lid of my laptop down or throwing my notebook across the room in frustration because I believe that I simply can not do it.
Believing that you can not do it and giving up before writing a single word is a sure fire way to ensure that you will never achieve dreams of becoming a writer. Hell, not even if you want to be a writer. No matter what you do, if you don’t think you can do it and give up out of frustration, you are going to fail. It’s as simple as that: don’t give it your all and don’t succeed. But when it comes to writing and that dreaded first line of whatever it is your writing, it can be so overwhelming to deal with that fear. Words are stubborn little buggers after all. Manipulating them to convey an emotion, to describe a scene or a person, and even to create actions and dialogue can be one of the most daunting things to achieve. As someone who aspires to write books for a living, the mere idea that a blank page and a fear of failure can beat me irks me to no end. So, I tried to determine a successful way to desensitise this fear.
I have taken to ramble recklessly and just spew out words in such a haphazard manner that the majority of the time I have no idea what I’m actually writing. Usually, somewhere in my mess of random words, there is a sliver of ingenuity or a starting point I never knew I had. To just vomit words onto a page is one of the most paradoxically calming and stressful things I have ever done. On the one side, I’m writing and my page is no longer blank. On the other side, the words make no sense and have no real meaning. But does the senselessness of it matter? After all, a bad page of writing can always be edited but a blank one cannot.
I have used a lot of first lines to chapters in my eleven years trying to write stories. My first lines have included:
- ‘The rabbit lay on its side: a heap of heather grey fur amidst blood stained leaves.’
- ‘It all started with a seemingly innocent question posed earlier that very evening.’
- ‘I am such an idiot’
First lines vary and change and stories that I have written have altered and developed and mutated into something unrecognisable and convoluted dependent on the first line I write on a page. I want so badly to say that the first things you write are unimportant but then I would be lying. The first line sets a very clear tone for everything that follows. But what I will say is this: what you write doesn’t need to be permanent. One of the best ways I’ve discovered to get over this fear of the blank page is just to start writing. Don’t think about it. Just write.
But why, as a collection of writers, do we experience this fear of the blank page? I can only speak for myself, but my fear stems from three different places. The first place is that niggling voice in the back of my mind that tells me I can’t do it, I won’t be able to make it and that everything I have ever written sucks balls. The second place is just a plain confusion and uncertainty of how to put one of my precious little ideas onto the page without completely destroying its pristine existence inside my head. The third place? College.
Sounds stupid to say that college is hindering my ability to write and is making me fear an unwritten page, but it is. After all, a common piece of advice I’ve been given in order to become a writer is to never stop writing. But how can I keep on writing when I’m being forced to study subjects I have no real interest in? Being forced to aim for these qualifications that, in essence, I don’t need. Anyone who tells me that I need good grades and extra-curricular activities to be successful isn’t taking into account what it is I want to do. I don’t need qualifications to be a writer. I don’t need my thirteen GCSEs, I don’t need to be working for four A Levels or studying for my own Extended Project Qualification to be an author. But I also want to go to University. I want to go University in order to broaden my horizons and inspire me in my writing. And so here I am: studying to achieve high grades to make it into University. But what if the longer I fixate on this college work and the longer I don’t write, the more profound my fear of the blank page will become?
So how do I find that balance? How do I juggle college work, a social life, a desire to go to University and a desperate need to write without unconsciously neglecting one to focus on another?
Writing will always be my dream. Writing to me is as necessary for my life to go on as the oxygen in the air around me. Remove writing from my life would be on par with removing that vital life source. But the whole concept of fearing the blank page leaves me startled: how do I overcome the fear and focus on my passion for writing without becoming lost? Do I lose myself in my passion, or lose myself in the emptiness of that blank page?
“Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.”
- Laini Taylor
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