It's a common complaint amongst writers about that moment when they sit in front of the computer (or if you're archaic or doing some weird back-to-basics exercise, in front of the typewriter*) and they're faced with the blank white screen (or page, to the troglodytes).
They talk in hushed whispers, from behind the pint they're nursing, about the way it just stares at them, taunting them, sapping the very marrow from their souls. They feel terror and apprehension as they try to urge words onto the glaring whiteness before them. It breaks them, just this part of the process, you can see the hollowness in the eyes where a bright intelligence used to be. Even when they manage to splatter their creative cum onto the screen (page, goddamn Luddite) some fundamental part of them lies in bloody tatters around their feet, whimpering its last pitiful breath.
And it shouldn't need to be this way. For all that every writer's process is different to one degree or another, this grisly, demeaning part of writing shouldn't even feature. You should look at that screen and shake its shake its fuckin' hand and say, "Hey, man! Nice to meet you, we're going to do cool shit together, you and I, so lets get down to it." And you whack a word on that damn whiteness; could be anything, could be what you had for breakfast or how hard you want to punch a member of your most hated political party, hell you might even want to go out on a crazy limb and write the first word of the story or novel or script you're planning to do.
Writing has enough hardships as it is (and yes it has some astoundingly easy things, but that's not what we're discussing here, concentrate) without adding the prospect of the opening salvo of sticky, sticky creative goo to the list. That right there, in case you missed my subtle suggestions, should be one of a series of wonderful orgasmic releases, and not the shameful ham shank while no one's looking. Remember, this is likely to be a first draft, you can always go back and change it – no biggie, it's part of the writing process.
For me, starting isn't a problem, my greatest bugbear is word count: am I doing enough? Am I just vomiting description onto the page just to change another digit in the thousands column? Should I just hit delete and consign the whole mess to the thing to the attic of my mind where it will be fed nothing but cat litter and Rizlas? At the moment this is hitting me harder than ever; I'm in the middle of a book that, by my calculations is going to be – forgive the technical term – fucking huge and those are just the worries that plague me every time I open up the file to add more of my mad or mediocre ravings. That's perhaps a discussion for another day.
* I don't get the freakish romanticism associated with typewriters, particularly the monstrosities people like Hunter S Thompson did his work on. These aren't mystical machines that will help you channel the ghosts of literary greats past, all they'll do is channel your inner pretentious twat. I used a type writer once, in the misty past, it was an electronic thing and I can tell you this, since using a word processor, it adds more complexity and frustration to the process than is needed. So fuck that jive, man.
Will
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