A Writer's First Mountain To Climb: The Blank Page

Staring at that first blank page, wondering what the hell you're going to write about, has to be the most daunting starting line for any author.

Five years ago I re-entered the corporate workforce. I had been a successful independent marketing and communications consultant, but thanks to the downturn in the economy my entire client-base disappeared. I had resigned myself to killing my creative side and focusing on the greater good of a regular paycheck.

Realizing how unhappy this would make me, my better-half suggested that I write a book.

"Why the hell not? Everyone tells you how funny you are and how you tell a great story. How hard could it be?" He said to me.

Yeah..... WTF...

So there I sat, in my newly created "author's" office, with just the right amount of Arts & Crafts furniture, a few items that have sentimental value for me that would hopefully spark some sort of story. I carefully placed a picture of my mother, who had passed away when I was 21, to watch over me. I was set. Off I went.

And that damn blank page stared back at me. The cursor blinking at me and I was sure it was doing it in a taunting way. Like it was saying, "I friggin dare you to type one word." So I did exactly that. I typed the word, "word". I quickly deleted it.

I sat there for about 10 minutes, mulling things in my mind and decided the problem was hunger. I needed to make a sandwich. 10 minutes later, I returned, sandwich in hand and decided...well I couldn't write and eat a sandwich at the same time, so I began going to my usual cyber haunts like CNN.com and Washingtonpost.com, getting caught up on my politics.

And then the spark hit me and I began to type. It was good. I was sure of it. I was working on the next, great American novel. Move over J.K. Rowling, I was the new sheriff in town. After I had written several pages I stopped and sat back satisfied. This writing stuff wasn't so hard and to prove it, I would reread what I had just created and allow myself to be amazed at my brilliance.

I had written the start of a story, about a little girl, alone in her room, at night. She was startled awake by a huge crack of lighting and thunder, she had a premonition that her father was going to die.

It sounded familiar...way too familiar.... It was stormy... at night.... Shit! I had just written my own version of "It was a dark and stormy night..." Perfect. I tore up the printed copies of my "masterpiece", shut my computer down and walked out of the room. It took me a month to return to my "author's" office when inspiration struck me in the form of Muse Unexpected.