The Blank Page

One of the reasons I started blogging last year was fear.

Fear of the blank page.

Okay so maybe “fear” is a bit strong but as a writer there is sometimes nothing more daunting than the blank page (or nowadays perhaps it’s more appropriate to talk about the blank screen…I used to have to start any writing longhand on legal pads and then, after having written a couple of pages, I would type it into my word processing program and continue on from there; I very rarely do that these days because my typing is faster than my scrawled printing and I’m used to writing here now.)

This blog…and my other one, Neverending Rainbow…serve the task of getting me past the blank page by giving me forums where I have to meet a self-imposed goal of producing new writing on a semi-regular basis. And, thus far, it has worked.

Working on writing exercises both short and, especially, long (like “Joshua and Rosa”, my stab at a romance story which was recently serialized in the space) have not only met that goal but, as I hoped, jumpstarted my other writing.

I have, for example, recently returned to working again in earnest on my third novel. It will be my third novel completed but the first one that I actually begun (more years ago than I care to count.)

It been started several times over the years…there is a drawer full of notes and drafts in my bedroom…and stopped just as often. It is…will be…some of the most personal writing of my life…a semi-autobiographical (emphasis on the “semi”…it’s not my life, just a life that holds a number of remarkable similarities) story of a quiet boy, his family, and his best friend with a special emphasis on the relationships between fathers and sons. It never felt like the right time to finish it...until now. Two chapters in and it’s flowing nicely in all of its bittersweet, “any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it)” glory.

Sometimes being a writer is such a rush :-)