Darkness of the Blank Page

There is something about sitting in the dark with only the light of your computer screen lighting the room with music playing in your headphones while everyone is still asleep that makes me want to create a new world. While my next manuscript isn't scheduled to start being written until November, I'm sitting here with more than enough editing that needs to be done in the mean time, still my hands are twitching to start something new, but what is the question.

I've freaked my roommates out in the past when they've found me in the living room after the sun has set with the lights still off with only my laptop and headphones on to block out the rest of the sounds of the real world I've worked. Standing in the dark doorway they stood staring at me for minutes until I looked up, or at one time long enough that I still didn't notice them until they turned on the light scaring the carp out of me. They've done the same thing as I watch movies or TV in the dark. "Why don't you have the lights on?" They've asked.

My response is usually the same, "I was in a groove and didn't need them." Or in the case of movies, "You watch movies in the theater in the dark, why not do that at home? It adds to the atmosphere."

They didn't buy it. Still there is something that I haven't quite figured out why, but I think the darkness is like a blank page when it comes to writing. You can make it into whatever you want.

There are so many possibilities of what you create it to be that it changes drastically from person to person. For some it creates a knee knocking fear inducing panic that are the horror of the unknown. Then there are the few of us that relish in the unknown and jump in feet first to see where it takes us. Good or bad, it's an adventure that few are willing to take. Then there are those who respect the fear that the darkness and the blank page create and embrace it for the power that it has.

I like to think that I am the last two. There is a good deal of fear that the darkness and the blank page has that I respect and understand. But it's in that fear that causes this euphoric adrenaline rush as you start typing creating something that wasn't there. Let it be a monster who morphs from the darkness into something so dense you can almost touch it as the hairs on the back of your neck stands at attention telling you to run. But then there are the times where the darkness is really a wonderland of rainbows and unicorns that lead you to the metaphorical pot of gold that you couldn't have created without that blank page or darkness of the unknown.

So, here I am having fallen asleep too early in the night to not wake up early and I don't want to turn on the lights other than the light that comes from my laptop and the darkness and blank page isn't something that I want to run away from. It's the warm blanket that you curl up with on a stormy night as you read a good book. While I have more than enough editing that needs to be done and a new manuscript that is planned to start with NaNoWriMo, I'm wanting to create something new, with no fear, and with no specific characters yelling at me for there story to be told.

It's nights, or I should say mornings, like this that makes me in awe of writers. No matter what it's these moments that we embrace to the fullest and write. We mold the darkness and the blank page into something that others can enjoy. With muse or not we always start out in the darkness to come out in the end with a world that didn't exist before. Yes, I'm grouping contemporary into creating a world, cause in the end the author is still creating something out of nothing. And that is so amazing that it makes me speechless at times.

While there is more than enough fear that goes along with being a writer on how people will like our work or if people will understand it, there is still that rush of ignoring all that when beginning a new project. Of that blanket of nothingness that is full of possibilities. It's that possibilities that keep me going. You never know how something is going to turn out. No matter how much you might plan something out things always change. But one thing is always true to stay the same. That darkness and the blank page.

As 4am is just around the corner, I'm off to embrace my darkness while it lasts until the sun rises and take on that blank page and see where it leads me. Don't be afraid of the darkness. It is what you make it to be.

Happy writing!