Writers are very dramatic, especially when it comes to the difficulty of staring down the blank page and beginning something new. Have you ever heard this quotation before?
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."
—Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith
It feels like that sometimes, but I try to take comfort from something several writers have said. Here's novelist Jodi Picoult's version:
"I may write garbage, but you can always edit garbage. You can't edit a
blank page."
In other words, you always get a do-over, at least in writing.
Why am I thinking about this today?
I just picked up my mask from the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art. This is my first time participating in their annual fundraiser. I need to turn in the finished mask in early December so it can be auctioned off next spring to raise money for the museum. Looking at the blank mask, I realized that I'm dealing with the artist equivalent of that blank sheet of paper.
Well, almost like a blank sheet of paper. Is it just me or does it look like the mask is grinning?