The Empty Page

18

January 15, 2013 – The blank page can be frightening to some, and thrilling to others. An empty landscape waiting to be filled.

I spend so much of my time writing. Educational stuff for University, for professionals, for the layperson. I write educational materials for both my work and on a volunteer basis. I also do a lot of technical writing. Today I spent half my day working on a document I’ve been working on for some time. At one point, during a two hour conference call, someone who came on the call late and didn’t know I was on the line, suggested that their program look into contracting someone to do some writing on their program, and then he suggested me as someone to contact if there were sufficient funds remaining. I’ve never met him before, but apparently he knew of me. I didn’t pipe up for two reasons. #1. He can’t hire me as I am now in-house, and apparently he doesn’t know this, and #2. I already have my hands full with other projects that I’ve committed to. But it was a nice feeling to know that my name is out there as a technical writer.

So why on earth would I want to write in my spare time? I can’t say why I like to write. In College I loved English class when we were told to free-write about anything. I loved creative writing. I wasn’t really very good at poetry, although while I was on contract a number of years ago, I did write a play on ’twas the night before Christmas, for the Cultus Lake Sockeye Program, and I later discovered it had made the rounds through a number of hatcheries.

But a blank paper journal can be daunting. I often wonder how many people actually pick up a pen anymore? Will the handwritten word disappear as digital life takes over everything? Kids aren’t taught grammar and penmanship in school to the extent we were, if at all. But today I wandered into a bookstore and was overwhelmed at the array of journals. There was an entire wall of them, a huge wall! They were in every size and colour. There were ones with writing prompts, and others that were just blank. Lined and unlined. Leather bound, hard covered, soft covered. Pocket sized, letter sized, and everything in between. I love books, and I have a thing for blank ones, ones that are just waiting for new thoughts to be composed.

I have a stack of hard covered notebooks for work, I write notes at every meeting. Writing helps me focus and helps me recall information later. But what about those blank personal journals? I love them, but it’s always hard to make the first mark inside. And what to write in them? Should I write stories? Should I write about my day? Should I write about my dreams? Should they be a place where I can vent about things that bother me? Should I doodle? Do I want to make the book consistent on a single subject? Or should it be a random collection of whatever?

The wonderful thing about putting an actual pen to a real sheet of paper that is bound in a book, is that it isn’t editable. An empty screen is easy to type away on. It’s easy to throw a random set of thoughts on the screen and then rearrange them until they sound the way you want them to. The end result looks perfect, and no one can possibly know what it looked like when it started.

When we write online, or in a digital journal, it’s too easy to go back and find discomfort in the words. And then, because it’s so easy to do when you feel differently, when your opinions have changed, you can change the words to better suit your current state of mind. In essence, you can change your own history.

On paper, what you write has a sense of permanency. To write something in one shot takes considerably more effort. When you go back a week later, when you perhaps aren’t as upset, when anger has subsided, when sadness has lifted, when optimism has faded. . . you can’t change anything without it being apparent.

Of course you can strike it out. You can tear out the page, crumple it into a ball, and toss it into the trashcan. But whenever you go back to that journal, you will know. The mess will be there. The evidence will confront you. The scratched out words are still under the ink, or the torn shards will provide evidence of your change of heart.

Or maybe you will leave them there, a testament to the fact that you once felt differently than you do now. Something to remind you that emotions and thoughts can be fleeting, but that the words on the page can’t be refuted. You wrote that, you thought that, it was and is a part of you. You can learn from what you write, reflect and ponder at a later date, laugh at the silliness, cry again at what was so devastating.

But that’s not why I have difficulty putting ink to a blank journal. I just love the clean look of an empty page. It’s a neat freak thing.

That’s all.

But this journal is a particular problem. While my Mom was in the hospital, two days after her stroke, one of her friends brought it to her to journal in, to use during her recovery. She never got that chance and when her things were collected from the hospital, it somehow ended up in a box of items that came back to Vancouver with me. It seems like a special journal that needs some extra consideration. I don’t know what I should use it for.