Confronting the blank white page – The first post
My fridge is cleaned out. My laundry’s been folded. My extremely old cat, Calli, has been fed and is now deep in her 24th nap of the day. And all this has left me with no distractions. So I guess that means it’s time to start this blog.
Writers are notoriously bad for procrastinating. Real writers, like William Faulkner, were bad at getting started. And those of us who haven’t quite made it as proper writers are also bad at getting started. That’s okay. A little fear of confrontation —- Joanna the Writer meets Mr. White the Page —- has nothing to do with how interested the writer is in writing. The opposite, actually.
I’m not one of those ‘real’ writers… not in the traditional sense. I’m a copywriter. For the web. And for emails. It’s what I care about now—-and I think you should care, too. I’ll tell you why as we go.
Like a ‘real’ writer, I am intimidated by the blank white page. I care about writing. I respect writing. And I do, of course, revere the reader… That’s why the delay in beginning this post.
Getting started: Do you know what you want to say?
One of the problems writers face when confronting that blank white page is focusing on what’s to be written. Of course, for a web writer, a site map, a solid wireframe and some messaging controls can help you get started. And, if you work with an agency that believes in briefs (NB: briefs should never be optional), the brief can help.
But eventually it’s just you and the page. Your fingers hovering over the keyboard. An “fdasjda;fa” thrown down just to muck the page up a bit.
The point
This blog isn’t going to be about confronting the page—-that’s just an exercise I had to do to get to the point. It was a necessary introduction to what will be the purpose of this blog: breaking apart, analyzing and developing strategies for writing web and email copy that works for the user. The good stuff. No, the remarkable stuff.
Sorry it took a while to get to the point. But, hell, at least we got there.
