On Writing Nothing

Is there anything scarier than a blank page? Not to me there isn’t. 

Some people don’t like deadlines or public speaking. Others fear death, heights, even dogs. For me, it’s the glowing white Microsoft Word, screen, the one without any words on it. Just thinking about it makes me tense. My jaw clenches, my shoulders stiffen and I get that funny tic under my left eyelid. 

On the days (mornings usually) that I end up filling the empty page with words, I feel myself relax. And the more words I write, the better I feel. Writing is equal parts therapy and exercise. I feel as satisfied after writing 1,000 good words as I do after playing a vigorous game of racquetball. Each activity leads to a sort of peacableness of existence for me.

But when the opposite is true, when the words don’t come, I sit there stiff as a tree branch and stare into the monitor until I give up in frustration. When this happens, I’m tense for most of the rest of the day. Sometimes this lasts for days or weeks, this tenseness. And even though it’s always gone away, granted after varying lengths of time, I always wonder the same thing: will I ever write again?