the blank page

The blank page is three things:

Freedom.

Intimidation.

Emptiness.

In no particular order, but the last shall be first.

Ah, freedom. The possibilities and potentials. This white page is a window to be opened on whatever scene you can provide. Shakespeare started with a blank page, and so did Charles Schulz. Meink Kampf was once an empty notebook. The script for Star Wars was just space. Robert Frost was all snow. You could turn the world into an Eden or a peanut. Anything can happen.

The second part is good ol' test anxiety, with a heapful of writer's block. It's a blank check of a deadline. You stare at the whiteness and you fear to make even a tiny dot. Where to begin? Where're you gonna go with it? Is anything you could put on this page worth doing so?

But the blankness too is worth considering. Before inspiration strikes, before blots and typos and plain bad ideas mar this lovely nothing, it is the void incarnate. This page is everything that came before perception and all that will remain when all the words in the world lose their import. Before "mama" and after "amen". This page is all that will never or ever be.