The Silent Page

For a writer, there is a silent tyranny to the blank page. The blankness suggests a vacuum in the writer's own heart - a lack of direction, inspiration - motivation, that never finally dissipates. The chase to fill this empty space can occupy a writer forever and that writer can still lose in the end.

Most of my life, I've been told that I should be a writer - one form of writer or another. It's understandable. Language dominates my interface with the world. I learned to read when I was 4 and never stopped. I was one of those kids who would borrow ten books from the library at once, read them all in a week and come back for more. In the pre-internet era, imagination was as magical and vivid as we dreamed it could be. Books were only truly successful when they were a collaborative experience between the reader and the writer. Creativity was as natural - and as effortless - as breathing.

As I've aged, my fascination with language and writing has only increased, but my creativity seems to be on a continuous downward slope. I think that, in part, this is due to the flood of media now surrounding us at every turn. Creativity consists of filling the gaps. When there are no gaps, there is nothing to create and originality suffers. To be sure, this is at least as much my own fault as my environment. I've become a bit too lazy, a bit too relaxed and happy. This condition is good for one's physical health, perhaps, but anathema to one's creative health.

At many points in the past few years I have realized that my desire to write can only be accomplished by actually writing - and that this can only be accomplished with a daily discipline that I seem to lack. Intellectually, I know that writing is like any other pursuit one wishes to be habitual - the first two or three weeks are the most difficult part. Creating a routine, ironically, is the key to true creative success. Only repetition can breed originality.

So this blog entry represents the first step in my latest attempt to transform myself from a dreamer to a doer. I am hopeful that committing myself to doing some writing everyday - even on mundane subjects - will stoke my creative fires and motivate me to get off my ass and DO SOMETHING. Whether this will just be another failed attempt or an actual beginning is unclear to me at this moment. But I have to try.

edit: no dice, but I'm going to keep trying...