THE BLANK PAGE

... can bring about feelings of apprehension and downright fear.... what if I don't really have anything brilliant to say, or what if I can't say it right and what if I can't fill this space with anything meaningful? Or, it can bring about feelings of endless possibility, a blank slate, the freedom to create something where before there was nothing. What do you see right now?This one time Dave went out to buy printer paper, and accidentally came home with a full package of the wrong kind of paper. For a while it sat on our shelf, this big stack of unusable blank white pages. Dave and I recently re-designed this blog and put out a new website, and we took on the design process ourselves (equal mix of endless possibility/endless fear!). There were times when I would be sitting in front of the computer screen, so frustrated and bogged down by ideas and dead ends. I'd distract myself by checking email, or going through Pinterest to get "inspiration". Then, I found that stack of white paper. I left my computer and sat with the blank pages at an empty table, free of distractions, and drew out my ideas, wrote out diagrams and words. It was so immensely helpful to me that I just had to share. It made me realize how often as creative people we are looking for and pulling inspiration from other places and that we're scared to actually sit in an empty room and pull inspiration from within ourselves.   So here's a challenge: do one thing that scares you every day. Make tackling the blank page a habit. Then, when the truly scary things come along, you'll be in practice with dealing with things that scare you. You'll learn more about yourself in the process (I have. I continue to use blank pages to sketch out ideas for shoots and for my writing). And because it takes skill to bring something you've only imagined into the world. For more thoughts on this, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of The Creative Habit, essential reading for those of us who rely on our creativity for our bread & butter. xo, jenn