Blank Pages and the Fear of Starting

The blank page can be the most intimidating thing I have ever come across, so I pretty much started typing this sentence just to avoid having a big blank white space facing me while I typed. I think it sets a good standard, though, so let’s get at the main crux of what this fear means.

Fear of failure is pretty standard, I think, in most careers. Paralyzing fear of not measuring up to some idealistic thoughts we have of ourselves, and fear that someone else might just not like what we have to offer. I think it stands in most creative fields as the penultimate fear, behind fear of being judged for career choices in the arts. That’s why so many of us have a backup. We don’t want to give ourselves wholeheartedly to shouting into the abyss with our words, sonatas, paintings, or gaming compilation videos.

BUT WHY THE HELL NOT

What is there really to lose? Some standard we set up for ourselves to reach? Let me tell you, you don’t reach it by thinking about how to get there. You go do it.

Go write your novel! Finish your composition! Make a badass tattoo! Finish editing that video! (I obviously have specific people in mind!)

This fear we have is self-perpetuating. We have a fear that what we can imagine in our heads to go on the page, or the canvas or the screen, will be sullied by our imperfect hands when we reach out to make it a reality. And while that is probably true in the most literal sense, if you never set pen to paper then the perfection is lost, since it just sits up in your brain-hole, torturing you endlessly.

SO JUST DO IT MAN!

Forget your backups, forget logic, forget what it is that holds you back from your art. If you want to bake cherry-rhubarb pies for the rest of your days here on this finite planet, then do it! I’ll be your first customer!

If you want to draw a comic series, do it!

Throw yourself into the raging sea that is your passion. Let the water toss you around for a bit but just toss yourself in.

I just gave you permission to write your screenplay. Go do it. Now.

Because sitting around and thinking about what you are trying to accomplish is not considered “working on it”. It is procrastination.

You haven’t gotten anything done. You just have wishfully thought away the time you had set aside to create.

So, I want you to do something important to yourself; I want you to create for the sake of it. I want you to purposefully sully the white space that sits in front of you, mocking your every movement or brush stroke. Every key press, every cut, every note is progress in a direction, and any direction is better than sitting in front of a blank page.

This is my new mission. I am not striving for perfection or to be the best writer that has ever lived anymore. I am striving for something even more powerful, something that I have wanted since I was eight years old and I first sat down to write down the stories running through my head.

I am going to create. Endlessly and seemingly without purpose or direction. I am just going to sit down and completely ruin that blank page I spent ten years staring at.

I don’t want to pretend the advice is easy. It’s the hardest thing neurotics like artists can do. To shut off the rats that scurry endlessly in the corridors of your mind, screaming at you that you cannot do it.

But it is a better alternative to sitting and forever wishing you had the courage to start.

So start. I implore you. Become addicted again.