The Blank Page

The blank page. It’s what a writer lives for. The potential, the freedom, the story you are about to write, unbound by the difficult decisions of craft and plot. In just a few thousand touches of the keyboard you could have created a masterpiece.

Optimism abounds in its pristine-white beauty.

I stare at it for a while. It remains a blank page, no masterpiece appears. I start typing, displaying the creative expertise of a random monkey. Nonsense appears on the page, then the ‘delete’ button dominates and blankness returns.

Alas, unlike a monkey I can’t just hit the keyboard and hope I'll ape Shakespeare. I insist on some ill-defined standards. Ideas flow through my mind and are rejected. Nobody alive would want to read any stupid thought that just happens to be passing through my brain, I must fine-tune them, pick out the ideas that are worth blackening the page over and then work, work, work at making then coherent and readworthy.

In my head I have already written an entire book’s worth of ideas. I have so much to say, the feelings I am experiencing in this moment, thoughts rushing through me, worries festering in a dark recess – the new job, the girlfriend’s temporary absence (hence the opportunity for blank-page-stare-out), the bulldog-clip currently holding our cooker together, is it a metaphor for my life or simply a factual description of my cooker. Will it sustain the pressure inherent in actually cooking a meal? ‘It is a metaphor, it must be’ I think as I go down to check on the baked potatoes.

The thoughts I choose are picked with mindless scatter-gun lack of precision: the argument I had with a sales assistant in a Polish supermarket in Krakov several years ago, when I was visiting Phil. I didn’t understand a word of what she said to me, she didn’t understand a word of my response, yet we were both shouting at each other, without either of us knowing what the hell the other was saying, utterly unclear what the argument was about. Language is no barrier to misunderstanding.

That could be a story in itself. Except, of course, it couldn’t. It’s just a random incident, meaningless, unworthy. Not even Dan Brown could pad that out to a story.

Looking through the window I can see autumn leaves on the ground. They surround my girlfriend’s car, like so many Indians surrounding the heroes’ wagon train in a 50’s western. I scoop them up and put them in the green bin, feeling a bit like John Wayne. That’s them pesky brown-leafs disposed of for another year.

They say you should write about what you know. The trouble is I know nothing. My life has been dull, safe, middle of the road. I’ve never experienced war, famine, genuine poverty, I’ve had no great struggle, no great romances, just everyday lust and disappointment. I can tell nothing that 50 million other people on this island couldn’t tell, nothing beyond the banalities of the day to day. Our recent trip to Ely, driving back in the dark along twisting lanes with Laura swearing constantly, numerous journeys to Stevenage: Chapter 15 the Joy of Royston.

Why do I consider myself a writer? I am just a loser in a game of stare-out with a computer screern.

Maybe it’s for the best. Stories take the reader and writer away from reality, away from the moment.

Maybe leaving the page blank would be the best thing I ever did. It would free me, free the rest of the world from reading my stories, save the page from the injustice of bad writing.

I convince myself that I am right and close the laptop. Today the blank page has won.

But tomorrow …