The Blank Page

I finished writing an extraordinarily difficult story last week. It took far longer than it ought, and affected me far more in the real world than I wanted it to. I had to write it, though. Not just because it’s going into But Not Broken, which is scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day (and oh, yes, am I ever cutting it close on that deadline!) No, I had to write it because a long time ago, when I was a different person, I made myself a promise. I swore that I’d use what I’d gone through to write, and to help others who might find themselves caught in the same trap I had. If I can give someone the tools to escape… and it begins with the internal work, which fiction has a unique ability to model for the reader through the characters as they think, speak and act.

Having done that, I’d promised my brain ‘something fun and light and fluffy!’ to write next. However, I also have deadlines. Yesterday, after a short writing break, I opened the file of the story I need to finish by the end of the month. I stared at what I’d written before. Ok, brain, time to make with the words.

Nope.

So.

Time to try the blank page trick. Amanda Green taught me this years ago. You open a file in your preferred writing software (I tend to write in Google Docs, because I can then access it from any device, up to and including my phone. Why yes, I do occasionally write on my phone, thumbs flying. It’s not ideal, but if it gets the story safely out of my head and into electrons, I’m going to do it). You stare at the page for a minute, but no longer! Then, you start typing. No stopping now to edit, just write whatever flows from brain to fingertips.

Well, that gets me started! I have no idea where that came from… no, scratch that. I know what was going on in my head, at least a little. Russian fairy tales have seeped into my bones from the first – literally, the first book I owned was a Christmas gift of illustrated Russian Fairy Tales. I love that book, and have managed to hold onto it, a feat in itself as I’ve moved a lot. The house spirits, the domovoi, I’ve written into several tales at this point. So those are both kind of my ‘default’ setting. Coffee, also, because I’m writing this while listening to the pot gurgle.

Some of the rest of it is me playing deliberately with tension, or at least attempting to. Happy, fear, annoyance, a cascade of emotions in less than 250 words. Now, what I can do with this hook? Don’t know yet. Might not do anything other than using it as a exemplar for the blog. Might run with it for the Pinup Noir anthology. Remains to be seen. I should probably plop it into a proper file instead of just abandoning it here in this post, though.

I can tell you that the images I’ve rendered will be a part of this woman’s story. As disparate as they are! So, try this next time you’re stuck. Take a blank page, an empty screen, and start writing words. Don’t worry about what you’re doing. You’ll figure it out once you let the top layer of anxiety break free and release your subconscious, also called the Muse.