Blankness

Few things are more frightening than the vast blankness of an empty page.  Whether it's a page in a journal or on a screen in front of me, the feelings it inspires are the same.  There is the promise of boundless opportunity - I can fill this page, I can make it come alive!  There is the dragging languor of indecision - what do I write?  And on their heels are the twin fears of disappointment and failed expectations.

Writing is a war against the blankness. Each carefully crafted sentence is part of a plan of attack, each molded paragraph - a tiny skirmish. 

Yet, all too often all the hard won skirmishes add up to a lost battle; a page filled with beautiful words but devoid of meaning.  A full frontal assault on a vast castle only to discover, after the gates have been breached, that the castle is crumbling from the inside, the cattle and crops are dead, and the villagers left have the plague.  A Pyrrhic victory.

The truth is, this war cannot be won; it can only be advanced, battle by painful battle.  Or I could stop fighting.  I could say that I've had enough and walk away, but that's not in my nature.  I won't admit defeat and I won't let the blankness win.  Sentence by sentence, skirmish by skirmish, I will be victorious.

Even if the victory is only over myself.