Blank Pages

“Blank stares at blank pages…” is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite songs. Sara Bareilles captures perfectly, in my estimation, that feeling I have all too often in my self-chosen writer’s world. Yes, I have chosen to write… blogs, books, seminars… but I would think, as it is something I’ve chosen to do, something I love, something I want to do, that it should come easy for me. It doesn’t always. In fact, more often than not, it’s a struggle. There are days in a row that I sit in front of my computer, trying and trying. I write a paragraph, or half a page, and delete it all. I start again, but it’s still not really what I want to say. Delete. Then, hours go by. Maybe I’ve searched quotes, or called my friends, or checked my email account for the 100th time. Maybe I take a walk. Maybe I do my dishes or scrub my bathroom. Still, the page remains blank.
 
I remember when I used to try to write songs with a co-writer. It was the same thing. I would show up with an idea or two, and before we even finished with the chorus, the critic in me would say, “Nope. That’s stupid. Start over.” Until one day, my co-writer said, “Shelly, I don’t know why we think it has to be a number one song. Let’s just finish one. No matter how silly, or stupid, or bad it turns out, let’s just write something.”

That was brilliant. It is a statement I come back to, again and again.

I don’t think this only applies to writers, though. I think we are, very often, completely paralyzed by the demand we place on ourselves to do something perfectly. “Where do you want to eat?” is met with, “I don’t know,” and what both people are really saying is, “I don’t want to choose, because if the meal is not exactly what you want, or the service is not entirely exceptional, I don’t want to have failed.”
We look for friendships to be perfect and jump out of them if they don’t bring out only our best qualities. We don’t go back to school, because we don’t have time (to get straight A’s). We don’t invest in a house, because we might not make money on it, or worse, we might lose money. We don’t have children, because we might not be model parents…

Some of these things may only be specific to my own neuroses, but looking around, I don’t really think so. And I’m not advocating that we become lackadaisical about results, because trying to do the best we can do is really the only respectable way to tackle any problem, as far as I’m concerned. But when did we determine that we had to be absolutely perfect, or better than perfect… life altering? And failing that, we might as well not bother to make any effort at all?

You know, my blogs probably aren’t brilliant. They will probably never change anyone’s life, or solve even one of the world’s problems. I need to be ok with that. I like to think out loud, on paper, and that has to be enough. And if I can remember my own advice, that life is for experiencing it, and that it can be a perfect life for me, even if it is a jumbled, incoherent mess, then I can give myself permission to fill my world with ideas, and thoughts, and plans, even if those ideas and thoughts and plans go horribly awry and turn into ridiculous mistakes.

That will be much more fun than blank pages, won’t it?