Shooting Blanks
I am intimidated by blank pages; those white spaces of nothingness. Perhaps it’s the daunting task of filling the emptiness with words that makes me want to run in the opposite direction, or maybe it’s just the fear of writing the wrong first three words (those that would determine whether the piece goes into the trash bin or gets published in my trash bin). It stresses me, knowing that if the first two sentences are all over the place, chances are, the entire piece will have the coherence of Einstein’s hairdo.
Sometimes I fool myself (just like Ramon* did) by starting a sentence in the middle of an email I received. Somehow, the first few letters that I’ve pieced together seem to be reassured by the presence of all those other alien words enveloping them, allowing them to keep their heads above water like some flotation device. I let these letters stew in the emails’ midst for a while and then I come back and see if they’re holding up. I then whip up a storm of ramblings and hope against hope that they would make even just a little bit of sense.
Most of the time they don’t but I post them anyway, especially if I’m in a jovial mood. Besides posting is free and hurts no one except the eyes of the reader, in which case the reader can always read some other blog and curse this writer under their breath. It’s also something to cringe and laugh about after some time, just like my teenage journals (some of which actually made me blush, harhar).
I envy those who can look at a blank sheet of paper and see it as an invitation for a writing attack. There are people like that; those who walk this earth and see everything as theirs for the taking, like conquistadores. If I were a writing material, I would pray to the literary gods to save me from these kind of people. I wouldn’t have enough time to enjoy my purity before they start raping me with their words and scrawl ink all over my innocence. But that’s how it’s supposed to be. A piece of paper won’t be satisfied until it fulfills it’s purpose to be written on or crumpled or heaven forbid, rubbed against the paper holder’s bottom.
*The head of the Amigos in Happy Feet
