Getting Beyond the Blank Page

Every time I sit down at my computer and prepare to write something—my essay, term paper, or even a creative—I get this disturbed feeling that nothing is ever going to show up in my train of thoughts. I look at my computer and look at the blank, stressing out that I am never going to come up with concrete evidence or what ever to fill the pages and develop my essay. As I look back on my writing career, mainly my four years of high school because I had no samples of writing remaining from the years before hand I remember going through the same stress every single time I sit down at the computer and begin to write I remember the same stressful feeling every time. There cant be a worse feeling in the world then trying to write a paper, essay what ever and having no idea what to say. As I sat down to read some of the samples of writing, those of which I have kept I remember the stressed out feeling I had at the beginning of every single piece of writing until the pages filled up and finally I have a well developed essay. The most stressful feeling as a writer though is that even though you have found a way to fill up the blank pages of paper this time doesn't mean the next it will be any easier. Until a thought comes that stressful feeling will arise every time I sit at the computer and begin to write, or try to write to fill the blankness on the screen.

I was only able to find four samples of my writing from high school all from junior and senior year. It was during these two years that I began to enjoy writing it wasn't that these pages were being filled up any quicker, actually it was taking longer to fill up these pages and get a train of thought going. However I began writing essays that were more meaningful to me. No matter what the topic given to me by the teacher was I took it and developed it into a life situation in which relate. It would still take a long time to get an idea flowing but after I did so I went with I had no more hesitation or questions on where I was going with the essay. When the ideas started flowing out of my head they ended up on the paper so quickly, it was amazing.

In November of 1997 we had just finished reading the "Declaration of Independence" in American English class. We were asked to write our own Declaration of Independence. When I began to thing about where I could go with topic my brain was swamped with ideas. It wasn't one of those moments where I had no idea what to write because I had no thought, but I had absolutely no clue what to write because I had so many thought that were leading me no where fast. I was standing in the Kitchen of my Aunts house with the text book open to the "declaration of Independence" and loose-leaf all over the place. My pen wasn't moving and the sight of all that loose-leaf laying all over the place with no thoughts on them was only making me more depressed. Then out of clear thin air I just started writing and writing. I made it a declaration about myself against my English teacher Mr. Cooksey. It was my second of three years with him as my teacher. He had been my track coach the year before. I piled up all the weird things that he had done through these years and created a declaration. I didn't mean a word of what was written on the pages before me and he knew it, however, I was able to fill up these pages of loose leaf that were laying all over the place thirty minutes ago which were giving me nothing but stress. It became a great declaration and one of my best if not my best piece of writing through out the years of stress trying to fill blanks and make sense.

After what I considered my best piece of writing ever I was feeling a lot of confidence. You know an athlete when they are on a hot streak that was me with my writing, I felt like I could write about anything. Unfortunately this awesome feeling would only last until the next time I would sit down at this blank paper with once again no idea what to write. It was when I sat down to do my term paper on The Great Gatsby, where this feeling like I could do wrong disappeared and it disappeared quickly. One would think after I was able to create a declaration based on nothing except pure imagination that I would be able to produce a term paper that is sole based on the readings I did of others and the book itself. That wasn't the case. In this instance the blank pages felt like they were never going to be written on. It took a month before I was able to get a solid topic one in which I was able to develop my ideas and fill those pages which one again I never thought would be filled. It was at this point that I learned there was no such thing as being on the top when it comes to writing. There will never be an instance when the pages just fill up like that and if there is then the topic isn't worth writing about. Through my writing I should be able to develop and idea answer a question. If you have done your job as a writer a question should be asked and answer should follow through out the essay. Until you are able to begin filling up the sheets a paper before you the answer to this question is just as unknown to you as it is to the reader.

METATEXT

While writing my essay on my writing career I realized that the state of blankness on the paper doesn't mean that you have a lack of writing ability. It is a writers block that the best of writers go through and every time you sit down and begin to write the same writers block will begin. It is the moment where you are thinking about the question before you and how to answer it. This it the time where a discovery should be made. You have made a break through in your writing. It happens every time you sit down to write and after this sudden break through everything becomes so clear. The pages that start filling up with the break through you have made. When you a write you are looking for a discovery in your work. Why did it happen and how can it be answered? To become a good writer every thing you write no matter what the style should be asking an answering a question, a discovery should be made. While I was writing this essay on my writing career I was asking myself many question trying to find a topic to base my essay on. I couldn't find a topic to base my career as a writer on. I was stuck as usual. Then after reading the 26 page excerpt it hit me that I could base my paper on how I get frustrated and stressed out every time I go to write a paper. However, I was never more frustrated than I was last night. After four hours at the computer and tons of drafts and ideas I finally came up with a draft that make sense to me, and could be used as a useable draft to get feedback on and improve on for my final draft.

The works I've written that I used for my essay to evaluate myself as a writer were "The declaration of independence" written in November of 1997, my term paper on "The Great Gatsby" written in April of 1998, my college essay written in September of 1998, and my senior year term paper on the historic home run chase of 1998 written in April of 1999.