The Blank Page!

I have literally just struggled with this exact thing so I thought I'd share.

The blank page. All white and ominous. It could be the start of something truly fantastic and amazing. Scary, right? Damn straight it is because you care about the words you put down on this blank white space before you. You care about the characters you create, the stories you tell and the plots you weave, if you didn't care I don't really think you'd be reading this.

I believe it is scary, for me getting past the first few pages and I am on to a role, but its when I stop, that's when I have problems. Recreating that buzz and excitement sometimes is really hard, especially when you have other things to juggle, life has a habit of just getting in the way. It stops you from doing the things you really love, the family is the only exception to me. Yeah, I'm single, but truthfully I am happy that way, I don't feel torn between writing and spending time with another half. I digress, so live distractions, you can pick and choose when you feel distracted most of the time, but when you find yourself in a rut, lost of all inspiration, sitting there with your laptop on your knee open and ready, but yet you just look at the TV screen and watch TV with your dad because well you're at a loss. Words don't always come easy to us and that's okay, just like some days people aren't very good at their job, they get caught out because they just need a day off.

The blank page is such a huge problem for a lot of people because they are trying to force the words on to the page. That first sentence doesn't matter in so many ways because I can bet my life savings that it will change at least once. So maybe we don't have to be so scared of it at all, perhaps it is just the first hurdle to start the flow of the race, like answering the first question on a test. It gives you confidence, it gives you a baseline to work from.

But what happens when you get past the first page, maybe the first 10, 20 or 50 pages, what happens if you hit the wall then? Do you panic? Do you give up? Do you listen to the voice inside your head that telling you to run away from the project and give up?

I am telling you no. To all of those questions. You don't give up, you might move on to a different project, but you don't give up on it because for every word placed on the page there is a little bit of you with it. A little bit of yourself mixed up in those words, it hurts to think you have written a lost cause, but that's fine because you look at the positives, you got past the first page. You conquered the blank page.

It's the same challenge with every new project and there isn't a way of making it any easier, it just is a thing. Sometimes its really easy, sometimes it just seems like words aren't working for you that day. If this happens I go back to an older project and edit or read. It's sometimes a good way of getting very the Blank Page scare.

These are just a few of my remedies, but I would love to hear what yours are! Please email me through this website or find J A Myers on facebook and contact me through there.

#Writing #help #Areyoustuck