The Blank Page

One of the scariest things a writer faces is an empty page. I read that somewhere. I think it’s horseshit. To me it’s exciting to start from scratch. Which is why I think I start a lot of ideas but just leave it there. There is a bin on my desktop now filled with ideas that just came to mind. Reading them again, I have NO idea what any of it meant. Some story ideas may’ve come from a dream. Or just a passing thought as I was driving.  I think what separates writers and non-writers is the ability to put that to page. As stupid as it looks.

Maybe this was said at t a time when you had to put a piece of paper into a typewriter. I recall those days. I had a Brother self-correcting one. My Mom really supported our creative endeavors. Not sure why. I think she likes to think she’s creative. But I think most Moms like seeing their kid do something that interest them. One of my ex-girlfriend’s Mom would always be interested in what movies I had churning in my head. I fucked that up when I recommended them “Armageddon.” A movie met with silence. And a declaration I was no longer given the right to choose any movie in their house. Ever.

But even when I was a kid I recall my Mom never hesitated to get us crayons, or paper. As me, my sister, and a group of the neighbor kids came over for craft time. In fact, we even made a club (yeah, I know ‘Li’l Rascals’ type bullshit, but it really happened). My oldest sister was too cool for school. She elected to sit in her room and read books. She had a collection of paperbacks. It is strange having a early teenage girl sitting in her room, just…reading, if you think about it nowadays. Anyway, she never played wiffle bal with the rest of the kids. Just sat in her room and read quietly. Probably judging us all from afar.

I digress. I think writing anything is the real key to setting your mind at ease. I think when you have it on paper, or in this case on a folder on your desktop, you can revisit later. So many ideas now that when I read it, I don’t have a clue what I was thinking the day I wrote it. It seemed so important at the time.

One time, a friend of mine told me she’d written a script. I offered to read it for her. She whipped out a legal pad with chicken scratch all over it. I swear, it had arrows pointing to plot. In other words, she expected me to follow a road map to her story. Now, I know for a fact she’s read a script. Which is why this confused me. I think in her case, her brain moved faster than she could type. I think this dilutes the need to want to re-do it. A lot of writers will write in long hand, because it separates what is really important when it comes time to commit to ink. To me, it’s repetitive and boring. I think that’s why it never made script form . Similar to how Hitchcock felt shooting the movie was the most boring part, since he already made it in his head.

Sobriety is kinda’ cool when you start to let your brain detox. A screenwriting teacher had told me that people who use substances to enhance their creativity..let their well run dry pretty quick. Because in the midst of clarity, no new ideas will form. Most will just focus on pushing the barge ahead of them over the hill. Forget that there’s flooding in the village. It’s muddled because they will have the concept down, but not the mechanics. And sometimes writing is mostly mechanics. Especially in screenwriting. It relies on function.

Anyway, wouldn’t you want to be those classic writers sitting at a ribbon’d typewriter, smoking a pipe and just clackin’ away?