Sunday, June 20, 2010

Facing the Void: Coping with a Blank Page




What do you do when you face a blank page? It's all about trusting the mystery and taking that leap of faith into the unknown...into the infinite realm where your stories reside.




• For more videos about writing and the creative process, visit my YouTube page. And watch for the debut of MuseTV, my new series of video interviews with writers and creators of all types and stripes.


• For more tips and inspiration, visit my web site, where you can read my "Rules for Writing," sign up for my mailing list and read/hear free excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.


• Need help with your projects or creative process? Consider one-on-one coaching/mentoring (over the phone of via Skype) or my upcoming online coaching group.


Art Credits: Creative Community Image from ehow.com

4 comments:

peter de Kock said...

Thanks for sharing your inspiring thoughts on writing Mark David. What I experience as the biggest barrier in dealing with the blank page, is indeed the void. It feels so uncomfortable to me that my mind is telling me that it's a 'no-go-sigal' and that I should stop and do something else. What I need to learn and what I want to learn, is dealing with the feelings, acepting them and allowing the process to unfold. As you tell in your video, that is truly a leap of faith.

Mark David Gerson said...

There's a chapter in The Voice of the Muse titled, not surprisingly, "Leaps of Faith." It begins like this...

"You enter into this lifetime in the leap of faith your soul takes into the being in your mother’s womb. You take that one huge leap only to discover that such leaps never cease being demanded of you.

"The same is true with writing. Each project...each page...each word is another leap of faith, another leap into a void that calls you to it even as your natural, personality-mind instinct is to recoil. ..."

It starts on p.225, if you have the book.

Life...creativity... It truly is one leap of faith after another. Keep leaping, Peter. It's scary, but ultimately rewarding.

peter de Kock said...

Thanks Mark David for your reply. It's good to remind myself that if I had the courage to be born, I will have the courage to write :)

Mark David Gerson said...

Me too, Karen!