My first thought is that what I’m about to say is a rather universal experience, or at least universal for those of us who cling so tightly to the identity of “writer”. Maybe I’m hoping the experience is universal so I feel less alone in my white-knuckled grip.
I think sometimes I’m haunted by the image of a blank page. I read a really good line in a book, I stare off into the distance like some character in a single-camera mockumentary who’s just heard something ridiculous or foreshadowing, I picture what it would be like to have written something that invokes such feeling. I see myself opening a fresh Word document on my laptop, I feel the potential, I get butterflies thinking of marring the white space with Calibri letters.
I flick my eyes back to the book in my hands and keep reading.
The blinking cursor on the page alerting me of where to begin, telling me to just start, sometimes feels like the ever-present proverbial devil and angel weighing on me, whether they’re clipping my wings or stabilising my feet on the ground depends on the day. The consistent flashing feels a bit like desperation, like the blank space’s need to have words etched across it rivals my unflinching need to do the etching.
I see the white page on days when there’s nothing to watch on any of the 90 streaming services I pay for just in case, when none of those books on my to-read shelf are talking to me. I swear to God there are times I can hear it whispering, having outsourced its convincing to those aforementioned celestial shoulder-dwelling creatures.
In some ways, there are worse things to be haunted by than the presence of your yearning dressed up as a cartoon ghost, if that white sheet is actually just a blank page. A constant reminder of your capacity to construct worlds and establish character dynamics and depict humanity feels somewhat freeing, feels like a gentle shove in the direction of doing something just because, just because you can, just because you love it. At the very least, it brings a whole new meaning to ghostwriter.
The irony of writing about how hard I find it to write, to take the words from my head and let them take up space, to put words to paper, is not lost on me. Is writing this the gateway I’ve been searching for, the avenue that is set to break through the dam walls that are preventing me from writing? If I keep writing about not writing, that still counts, right?
Maybe the next step is to change the language. Less “I want to be a writer”, more “I want to write”. Maybe the change really is show, don’t tell, and the answer has been right in front of me the whole time.
Maybe next time I write to you, I’ll have something better to say than to wax poetic about the difficulty level of convincing myself to write.
Maybe I’ll just write.
Sheridan Harris
Editing Intern
What a beautifully vulnerable piece about writer’s paralysis. Sheridan has masterfully transformed the cliché of writer’s block into something fresh and visceral through specific, evocative imagery: the “white-knuckled grip” on writerly identity, the cursor “blinking like desperation,” the blank page as a sheet-draped ghost. That final evolution from “wanting to be a writer” to “wanting to write” captures a profound truth about artistic identity. This is exactly the kind of writing that makes readers lean forward in their chairs—honest, specific, and ultimately transformative.