Blank pages.
Blinking cursors.
I look at one every day, multiple times a day, whether it’s an entry for this blog, or a word document, an empty spreadsheet, an email I’m crafting.
I don’t regularly get hung up on these things, because with each of these blank pages and blinking cursors exist with both potential and purpose – I open an email window because I have information to share with a singular person. I open a blog post because I have information to share openly with numerous people. I open a word document because I have thoughts I wish to not share with anyone… yet.
But sometimes I open a word document and get into some sort of staring contest with it. The daunting curse of the blank page gets the better of many writers, including myself on occasion. I’m no different. Someone might call this ‘writer’s block‘ and allow it to rule their artistic output for weeks, months, or even years unnecessarily. Unnecessarily, because writer’s block doesn’t actually exist.
My feelings on that matter are that the term ‘writer’s block’ would be much less effective if we called it what it really is: Fear of writing something shitty. So write something shitty, and toss it during the editting stage.
What happens when you free-form word-associate, do ‘morning pages’ (for those who have read ‘The Artist’s Way’ which I have not read yet, but have some knowledge of), journal, write a shopping list… you write something that’s (probably) shitty and unedited that will (hopefully) never see the light of day.
What’s the difference? No idea… to me they’re the same.
Everything I write, I write with intention… even if it IS a grocery list, I have the intention of following through with the action required to assure that I don’t run out of coffee and toilet paper. Sometimes that intention is to turn to the next page of a coil-bound notebook, never to return. Sometimes it’s a song that will eventually be recorded, and played on college radio. Sometimes it’s a song that will get ash-canned 6 months from now.
So… ok… great.
We have an idea when we set out to write something…
Terrific.
But the limitations of an idea are still pretty vast. Likely too vast.
Like, you can write about time travel… or you can write about traveling time back to when your parents were your age, and struggle with the paradox of affecting their lives and what that might mean for you as their child, 30 years later.
That movie’s already been made, but perhaps refining an idea isn’t enough. Maybe you (or I) need to just type words about dealing with writer’s block with some sort of time limitation and see what happens after 30 minutes…(?) Is that what I’m doing right now? yes. Is that what I do every time I write a blog post? no… this is a one-off. Will I be editing this post? no, and I almost never do. Is it on the level of Cormac McCarthy? No, but that’s not the goal.
So, what is the goal?
I guess that’s up to you.
Maybe a time restriction won’t work for you.
Maybe a minimum number of words.
Maybe a minimum number of words per day.
Maybe a specific subject.
Perhaps you’ve crafted a 2-minute pop-punk song and you need to put words to it without making it sound like you were writing it specifically to be short.
Maybe you’re getting into haikus.
I really can’t tell you what to write, but if you’re looking for some exercises to get your brain in gear, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame wrote a book that came out during the pandemic called “How To Write One Song” that is fraught with writing exercises to help get you there.
Time’s up.
Thanks for reading.
The Conscious Pilgrim 