If I Can Overcome a Blank Page, Then You Can Too
A blank page? More like scribbles of thoughts if you ask me. I write one word — erase. Two words — erase — and then the cycle continues until the excessive smudges on the page leave me with no choice but to crumple up the paper into a ball.
The only sense of excitement I receive in such times is from throwing the balls of paper into a trash bin like a basketball after passionately shouting “Kobe” or “LeBron” inside my head. Unless I’m repeatedly missing the bin on each throw, I get that instant rush of joy that enters my heart, and in the toughest times, it is to me, the closest I can get to replicating the relief I get from bouncing a tennis ball or from squeezing a stress ball.
Once I finish throwing all the crumpled paper in the bin, I begin the next page hoping for a different outcome.
Having repeatedly watched all the Rocky and Creed films, the wealth of wisdom from those films are in my brain like a hard drive and I can access them in my mind when I need them most. For this particular instance, I constantly recited Rocky Balboa’s words to Adonis Creed during his major boxing match against Pretty Ricky Conlan, “one step, one punch, one round at a time.” I knew it didn’t exactly apply to the task at hand because that was related to boxing, however I knew I could recontextualize the dialogue in my head so that it was relevant to my writing. Instead of saying “one step,” I said “one word”; instead of “one punch,” I said “one line”; and instead of “one round at a time,” I said “one paragraph at a time.”
With that ingrained in my mind, I was ready to return to the blank page.
Knowing how overly self-critical I naturally am, I told myself I was going to set quality aside and time myself for five minutes just so I could get my foot in the door and then from there I repeatedly used ten minute timers while mindlessly allowing my unconscious mind to do all the talking on the page. And now I have come such a long way from the blank page I started on. I say blank page, although it was more like multiple discarded pages that led me to a new blank page every time.
Prior to beginning the steps I laid out, I was in the midst of a writing slump as I was basically scribbling pages out of pure annoyance. I wasn’t confident in what I was writing and I couldn’t string together a steady and connected stream of thoughts.
I thought I could use a story to help me get back on my feet as I was on the verge of collapse and needed a springboard to aid my recovery. I look forward to continuing the stories I have long awaited to share here as I move along this journey.
Until the next one, take care and good night!
