I love a blank page.

It’s an invitation, when you first open a document or flip the page in a notebook. I love the feeling you get when that blank page is in front of you. Crisp. Clean. Untouched. Waiting for you.

Waiting for you to fill it with your thoughts, your ideas, your art or your words. It’s waiting for you to fill it with … you.

Undaunted by the blank page

Perhaps some writers and artists are daunted by the blank page. If you don’t have an idea of what to write or create, it could be that way.

Fortunately, I always seem to have something to say. Well, I guess that’s good for me, and you, if you like to read what I write.

But even when it’s just for me – like the personal journal I write in briefly each night – I like the fresh page. I like being able to jot a few thoughts onto that blank page. I never have to think about what I should write. It’s just always there.

Journalists write any time about anything

Perhaps this ability to write about anything any time came from my career as a journalist. As a reporter, you couldn’t wait for the mood or muse to strike. You got the quotes, got the story and got it in the system. If you were lucky, you had time to mull it over and craft a nice lede (that’s journalism speak for the first line of a newspaper story) and spend some time putting your personal style into it. If you weren’t lucky, maybe you could write the lede while you were driving back to the office and let the rest just fall into place.

Newspaper writing is pretty forgiving, though. It can be just the facts: Who, what, when, where, how and why — if you can get it. If you don’t have a lot of time, you stick to the basic facts. You let your quotes give your story some lyrical qualities.

If you had more time before deadline, then you could play around with the structure, tone or even the rhythm. Readers probably didn’t know or care, but you knew when something flowed well and rang true. Maybe an editor would notice and point out a good sentence or compliment your word choice.

Journalism fills blank page

Newspaper journalism makes you fast and unafraid of the blank page. After all, we had to fill dozens of pages every day.

As a page editor, I used to joke I could fill a page with a good photo, a decent column and a calendar. (I did, occasionally, too, but it wasn’t a good page – just not a blank page.)

Blank pages in newspapers represented the job or the challenge. You couldn’t have a hole on a page – an empty spot where a story or photo should be. No, you had to fill the space – sometimes creatively – before the pages went to the press.

Maybe that’s why I still like blank pages. They are simply waiting to be filled. But now, instead of with newspaper stories, I fill them with my thoughts, ideas and words. I fill them with me.