Blank Page

Is the glass half empty or half full — the old test that determines whether someone is an optimist or a pessimist. For writers, there’s a variation. The blank page. Is the blank page a glorious canvas waiting to be painted with words and thoughts or is it a terrifying abyss, a silent sentinel that all writers have to pass in order to do their work? Some days it’s the former, some days it’s the latter. Most days it’s both. Writing is a little bit of a high-wire act. Exhilarating. Intimidating. It feels better with a safety net. But the only net available to the writer is never letting anyone else see your work. Anything else is inherently dangerous. Even sharing your writing with friends and family can feel like a game of Russian roulette. You’re stepping out on the wire every time you take a chance, post a blog, submit to a publisher, get feedback from a friend. If you dare to look down there’s no net below to cushion your fall. You’re on the tightrope. You’re halfway across. There’s no turning back. You’re going forward or you're falling.

And this, of course, is where the metaphor breaks down. Metaphors have a nasty habit of doing just that, after all. The cracks of this one show up when we consider what happens when we DO fall. For an actual tightrope walker, a fall equals injury and/or death. For a writer, a fall, a rejection, sucks. No matter who you are and how much you’ve accomplished, I suspect any criticism that comes your way has a sting. But our falls are ones we can walk away from. We can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and head right back to the tightrope. It hurts. Of COURSE it hurts. But it’s not fatal, even if it feels that way sometimes.

Which brings us back to our old friend/enemy. The blank page. It always comes back to that. After a fall, that empty space can look terrifying. Even for those of us with a natural optimistic bent. Even the rosiest of outlooks can become a little jaded after enough falls and failures. Now the blank page is another sort of test. Not about pessimists and optimists. Now it’s a test of perseverance. Fortitude. Do you push through and try again? Do you step out on the tightrope one more time? Or do you pack up and go home, leaving that blank page for some other soul braver than yours to fill?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

― Theodore Roosevelt