The Fear Of The Blank Page.

I’ve always found it hard to start writing things.

With each book I write, it gets easier, but I still feel incompetent when it comes to beginning things. I can end books just fine. Endings are good, they’re dramatic, they’re important. But beginnings? Holy crap, they’re hard to write. You have to set the scene, you have to interest people. Oh, and when you begin something, you have no idea how it’s going to turn out.

Today, I had to write a description for the back of AMEND. I can not describe my books in one paragraph.

I can write books easily enough, but I can’t describe them.

And so I sat at the computer, staring at the blankness on the screen, trying to figure out how to describe 52, 700 and something words in just a paragraph.

And just when I thought I was done, I had to write a paragraph or so about myself.

You’d think I’d know myself pretty well, seeing as I’ve spent the last fifteen years being myself. But it turns out; describing myself is ten times worse than describing my book.

I mean, how do you sum up a whole person in a few words? And how do you know you’re not writing about who you want to be, rather than who you are?

So for the second time today, I found myself staring at a blank page.

I’m fascinated by words and letters and writing. When I write, I form the letters without thinking. When I type, my fingers find the keys without looking.

For about half my life, I have been able to create words by putting letters together. And it’s completely subconscious. It’s a miracle really, that words just form.

But when the words don’t come…then I can’t write without thinking.

And the truth is, I’m scared of the blank page. I hate that I can’t find words to fill it up.

Yesterday, I was working on the third draft of TRANSCEND. Most of what I was doing was trying to add some emotion to it. In the kind of books I write, there has to be emotion. I write horrible storylines, and the characters have to react to that.

But sometimes, I just can’t find the words. And the page wasn’t even blank. It was filled with the little black symbols that form together to make our language. It was completely filled with words, and I was still unable to write.

When I wrote the first draft of TRANSCEND, I felt like I had forgotten how to write. I was so sick of that book, and I just wanted it to be finished. So I hurried it, and it was pretty crap. The feeling of not being able to write…let’s just say it’s not a good thing for writers to feel.

I express myself through my books, so if I can’t write, then I can’t express myself.

On the 1^st of February, I started writing another book.

It’s set in the same world as The Three Stages trilogy, but set it’s about fifteen years after the end of TRANSCEND.

My current plans are to have a trilogy of trilogies. So nine books all set in the same world.

The book I am currently writing feels very different from The Three Stages trilogy. For a start, I don’t have a lot of main characters; I have a lot of secondary main characters, and then one main one. Her name’s Yanne, and she is a very interesting character to write. Why? Because she doesn’t tell lies. Ever.

I have never read a book where the main character doesn’t lie at least a few times. I now see why. It is really hard to write, cos you have to think about every single word that character says.

When I started writing this book, I was going to have three main characters. Then I realized that I didn’t really like one of them, and one of them was kind of boring. So now I just have Yanne.

But the first few chapters will have to be changed, because they’re from the perspective of other characters. So I have to rewrite the beginning, and face the blank page yet again.