The Blank Page Apprehension

A feeling of apprehension usually fills me before I start to fill a new journal. The blank page staring at me begging me to begin. Daring me to do something bold, something different, something extraordinary. The feeling that I must make that first page something extra special used to create this enormous feeling of anxiety. It has to start somewhere, but how to start? How to start that will make this one a bit different than the last? How to outdo myself from the last time?

There have definitely been times, especially when I would have a beautiful new journal with specially designed pages, where I would be sooo anxious of what to write, that I would delay writing in it! I would hold the thoughts in my head and sometimes I would even lose them. Then in a mad rush I would scribe like a hungry man would eat his first meal in days. Word after word, page after page, with my hand starting to cramp, yet, I still continued on.

Nowadays, on a meager budget in order to buy such luxury items, I now use your basic run of the mill spril notebook with lined pages. I have learned that you really can never judge a book by its cover and I must say there is so much less pressure in an ordinary journal than a designer one. In the end it is all me anyway. So I am starting this new blog as I would any of my recent journals… by just writing out what is in my head and seeing where it takes me. No premeditation, no apprehension and no worries.

Of course this applies to any new project… whether that be a blank piece of art paper in front of me, a blank word document before I start to write a story or even when I am just starting out decorating a room… the thing I have learned though is that you have to just go for it. If you stall, if you procrastinate, the magic in that moment is lost. It will never be the same, maybe the next time around it is better, but maybe not… I never know.

So for now, I am letting it all out. The beauty of a blog post is that I can add to it later, I can take unnecessary words away and I can even delete it if necessary. This blog is not going to be really limited, although in my head I have this thought that I should keep it to just a few simple subject, but I am going to just throw that out the window for now and write on.

Leave a Reply