This is what we start our day with. No baggage from the previous day. The blank page does not judge you. You didn’t write anything yesterday? The blank page doesn’t care. No laurels from the last session. You wrote a masterpiece yesterday? The blank page will cut you no slack. That was yesterday. Our successes, our failures, our fears, our procrastination… everything got buried in the depths of the darkness last night.
This is today. And we’ve got to start all over. With the blank page. There’s no day off. No cheat-day. No comp-offs. No holiday. You’re the sun. You just got to rise. You’re the heart. You just got to beat. Sure, you will feel like dragging your feet. You will want to put it off for later. You will get tired. Yes, writing can be tiring. Words can be tiring. But then, words are your fuel, too. Only writing can recharge you.
The question, then, is why is the blank page so scary?
Skipping a night’s sleep makes you groggy and tired the whole day. Skipping breakfast, or your first meal, makes you feel weak and irritable. Skipping a workout makes you feel guilty. What does skipping writing make you feel? Does it make you feel sad? Guilty? Frustrated? Indifferent? What will it take to not miss a session? To not leave the blank page… blank? Courage? Discipline? Targets?
I think what makes the blank page scary is its sheer inevitability. Try what you may, the blank page will present itself. Every morning. Acceptance is the key. The first step. And the day we accept this inevitability, the journey will begin. The journey of a complete turnaround. From fearing the blank page, to falling in love with it, to looking forward to it.
It’s an inward journey. Because falling in love with the blank page, will teach you to fall in love with yourself. Which brings us back to the first question. Why is the blank page so scary?
We fear the blank page, because we are afraid what we will write will not be good enough. We fear others will not appreciate our work. We fear rejection. We mask this fear with excuses of thinking deep and researching more before writing. Of course, we’ll never really reach the depths where we find the courage to finally start writing. Distractions will get the better of us before that. We mask this fear with procrastination. We mask this fear with lower hanging fruits, which we know will never be a sweet as our words. And in overcoming this fear of rejection, lies the secret to getting over the fear of the blank page.
So, what will it take to overcome this fear of rejection?
The answer, in a word, is a ‘word’.
Yes, one word. The first word. You write one word, and the page is not blank anymore. That’s your first step to winning over the blank page. Don’t judge the word. Not just yet. Don’t judge yourself yet. It’s just a word. Add more words. Make it a sentence. A paragraph. A story. Don’t judge yourself still. It’s just a story. But it’s when you enter this phase – of adding words, constructing sentences and paragraphs, that you realise that a process has begun within you. Most involuntarily. Words are begetting words. Sentences are shaping characters. Characters are building stories. You are traversing landscapes with muscle memory, just like you shift gears while driving. You are the author. You are the spectator. All at once. And it is this process, that will instil in you the confidence to not fear rejections. That is not to say that your work might not get rejected. Just that it won’t bother you. For now, you are writing for the love of writing. Appreciation or rejection is a by-product. And slowly, you learn to love writing more. You learn to love yourself more. You learn to love the blank page. Now, you look forward to the blank page. It’s like the good sleep you crave for at night. It’s like the great meal you must have in the morning. It’s like the workout you cannot miss. You can’t, just can’t skip it anymore.
So, the blank page is literally my blank page being a writer. You could be an accountant, a software engineer, a chef, an entrepreneur, a homemaker, a journalist, an actor, a sportsman. Anything. What is it that you start your day with? What is your blank page? Do you fear it? Do you love it? Do you avoid it? Do you look forward to it? What do you fill your blank page with?
Starting today, I will share the thoughts that spring from my blank page with you. It could be ideas, lazy thoughts, events, or experiences. Anything that will turn into words and fill in my blank page. It’s a journey I am starting and I urge you to be a part of it. Together, we could explore terrains that we never knew existed, or those we thought were familiar but have facets we weren’t aware of, or those that we have always been a part of and know like the back of our hands. In short, wherever the blank page leads us.
Thank you.