THE BLANK PAGE
Writing a report no one cares about.
No matter what you write. No matter what genre, style or project, essay, novel or poem, it always starts with the same thing. The blank page in front of you. It doesn’t matter if that page is a sheet of actual paper or on a computer screen. They are equally daunting. If you don’t believe me, cast your mind back to the last time you had to write a term paper. Think of how that blank page looked and the anxiety it aroused in you.
I have to imagine that for someone suffering from writer’s block that the blank page can be terrifying to see. I have been lucky in that I haven’t yet experienced writer’s block. Maybe that’s one of the advantages to coming to the game later in life. By the time I started to write seriously I was in my forties and had a lot to say. That isn’t to say I haven’t had nights when I walked away from the laptop without writing a word. Some nights you just don’t have it. Some nights I consider it a good night if I can get three sentences out onto the page. Three sentences, one measly paragraph, that can be a good night.
Most nights I shoot for five hundred words. It is a lot less when I first start a project. The beginning stage is akin to building a stone foundation, slowly balancing the words on top of each like stones that will bear the load for the eventual structure. If you get something wrong at that stage, then it can lead to a lot of problems when you start framing and building. At that stage of the project, I probably write two or three hundred words a night. Toward the end of a project, I might get a thousand, or even fifteen hundred words out in a single evening.
Those are usually the nights near the end of a book that my Long-Suffering Wife hates. By that stage I have usually been doing that for a week straight. It is easier that my boys are older, but LSW doesn’t seem to enjoy the brief flirtation with single parenthood. I can’t blame her for that, and I am deeply appreciative of the time to write that my family allows me.
Writing is work. That work takes many forms. Having the discipline to practice your craft. Doing the research so that when you write the little mistakes don’t take the reader out of the story. Sitting down every night to write so that eventually an 80,000+ word novel pops out seven or eight months later. On top of all that the plots have to interesting and have twists. Nobody wants to be known as the writer who everyone can figure out the ending. It doesn’t make for much of a whodunnit. It is super gratifying when readers tell me; “I didn’t see that end coming.”
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not working in a salt mine. While writing novels is work, it’s also a lot of fun. I am lucky to be able to do it. I am extremely lucky that several years ago my agent liked my first manuscript, and my first editor/publisher did too. The world is filled with talented writers, many more so than me, who never got a break, found a champion or got a toe hold in the industry, much less finding an audience. Friends and family tell me I am talented, and I appreciate that, but I also know that a couple of lucky breaks got me here too.
Someone at work once asked me; “Why’d you decide to write a book.” He was a boss and not a fan of mine and it was asked with more than a little bit of “who the fuck does this kid think he is?” tone. I didn’t have a good answer for him at the time. It was one of those situations where you think of the witty comeback days after the initial insult. But now, years later, I know the answer.
It’s actually kind of simple. I write because I can’t not write. I see things, everyday objects, places, situations and in my mind, I start developing a story for them. I do it without consciously choosing to do so. The words turn into stories and the stories build up in my head. I started writing the bad poetry that only a few close friends who read this will ever see. That was the gateway drug to short stories, and now novels. The truth is I write them because I want to get the words out on to the page and eventually get the novel off to the publisher. Then I can start all over again.
I have written seven novels in six years. Five are out now and two will come out next year. Those two are in different stages of being edited and eventually will be done and off to be printed. I am under contract for an eight novel and need to start it. In a couple of weeks, I will sit down at my desk and stare at the blank page. I will turn up the volume on the playlist I made. I will stare at the blank page for a second, not with dread but with anticipation, and then I will start tapping on the keyboard, building a foundation, starting a novel. But it all starts with the blank page.