Mindset

The Seductive Lie of a Blank Page

Don’t fall prey to perfectionism

By Jesse Rogers

A blank canvas reveals no flaw.

Until words fall upon it there’s simply no reason to believe that the brush strokes will connect as anything other than genius.

Why wouldn’t your refrain simultaneously be as elegantly subtle and as powerfully thunderous as Mozart’s Symphony #40?

Why wouldn’t your villain be as insidious as the wicked Iago?

Why wouldn’t your hero be as tragic as Jay Gatsby, with his “extraordinary gift for hope”?

So long as a page remains white and pure or so long as the screen has nothing but a blinking cursor, the illusion of perfection remains intact. You get to hold on to your own “gift for hope”.

But slowly, imperceptibly, time betrays you. The moment stretches from the bliss of infinite potential into paralysis.

You stare at length into the glowing abyss, as it stares also into you. You can’t hide from yourself the knowledge of your inadequacy. Deep down you know that when the ink finally spills, no one will mistake it for a Jackson Pollack.

And so instead of something to build from, you end up with only a blank page. Only potential, but no achievement.

I’ve had the same problem, and I can help.

Here are a few strategies I use regularly.

Set Time Differently

“It is always day one.” Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO

When you adopt a beginner’s attitude you don’t judge yourself harshly for making mistakes nor do you try to lazily coast off of previous successes.

You expect errors, and you know that it’s okay. The point is to learn.

Keep that attitude, even long after you’re no longer a beginner. The truth is that even after decades of working and studying a single thing — no matter what that thing is — in this era of history we are always in a rapidly changing environment. That learner’s attitude will always be the right one to hold. There will always be more for us to know. And it will always be day one.

In writing specifically, the biggest reason why it’s hard for us to put words on the page is that our bar is set too high. So I set the expectation for all my work merely as a requirement for me to produce. Learning happens on its own from effortful practice, and audiences decide the quality, so the only thing I focus on is consistently saying what I want to say as honestly as I can.

I plan to produce no less than 1000 words every day for the rest of my life. “Two crappy pages” as Tim Ferriss puts it. That should yield me enough material for at least 1 book per year from here on out. Plus however many articles. I’ve come to love the act of writing, so why not?

By my mid-eighties, I should be producing my best works. At that point, after around sixteen million words practice, I figure I might finally be getting somewhere. Bless your heart, dear reader, as you suffer through my learning curve for the next 45 years.

Through this lens, it is forgivable for my work to fall well short of my ambitions along the way. After each disappointment, I can truthfully say to myself, “It’s okay, this is the worst my skill level is ever going to be. Try again.”

That holds not just for writing but learning anything I want to learn, really.

Get Childish

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” — Pablo Picasso

“Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms. You’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.” — Seneca

Before I went to kindergarten I was a self-published author who wrote many comic books. Granted, I couldn’t spell yet, so they were only pictures. We didn’t have computers either, they were two sheets of paper cut up into maybe a dozen little sheets that were bound by a hot glue gun.

I also used to make my mom glue chain bindings for me made out of construction paper. I transformed into the Hulk when I burst out of them.

That wasn’t all. I had a whole army of Shrinky Dinks heroes backing me up.

Now, what about you?

Remember back to the kid who didn’t think to make comparisons with anyone else. Who didn’t think to calculate risks, costs, and rewards? The one who simply played for the sake of play. That kid was fluent in the magic of effortless creation.

Even if you’ve had it easy (as I did) the world has by the time you’re reading this largely beaten that child out of you. Comparisons, responsibilities, rewards — traps.

But that child is still in you, somewhere.

Close your eyes. Summon that child. Let your past self hold the pen. Allow the pen to transform itself into the wand of a sorcerer.

Ignore Most Critics

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.” — Epictetuts

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” — C.S. Lewis

I’ve squandered so much time and effort as a people pleaser. It really is a complete waste of time to worry about making others happy. You can’t. All you can do is tell the truth.

Truth reminds me of a rainbow that you can appreciate, and seek, but never quite hold. Its position moves away from you the closer you think you get. Others see the truth from other angles and are convinced it exists in different places.

Just know two things about Truth — You won’t ever reach it, and no one else has it either.

That’s why no matter how many generations pass, no matter how many books are written, no matter how many conversations are had, there’s always going to be room for more. There’s always going to be room for you. We can never get to the complete story. So just write the truth as honestly and as usefully as you can manage to capture it, and let everyone else bloody well feel about it however they feel.

I know that it can feel like death to face criticism, embarrassment, and opposition. For good reason I suppose; our unpopular ancestors might literally have faced death when exiled from the tribe. We inherited that fear.

But the threat is rarely real. So don’t hedge. Don’t self-censor. Don’t worry about how Fox News or Liberal Twitter is going to react. Who cares?

My heuristic is that when someone else has already done the things I aspire to do, I listen very closely to their advice. I follow their critique even with preference over my own instincts. A novelist with 3 bestsellers? Yes, I want to know their opinions on how I can improve. I will take their advice very seriously.

But someone sniping at me in the Facebook comments section who doesn’t know me? Who hasn’t even written their own book yet? Well, I’m grateful for their time and attention but significantly less inclined to defer to their advice if I disagree.

“You will never be criticized by someone who is doing more than you. You will only be criticized by someone doing less than you.” — unknown

A blank page offends no one — true. But it is self-deception to imagine that anything you put on it could draw no criticism. Some people will click away no matter what you do. So if you worry about pleasing everyone, your pages will forever stay blank. Seek to emulate only the handful you truly admire. Ignore the rest of the noise.

As Epictetus put it, “if you want to be a writer, write.”

You can connect with me at [email protected], which I check weekly.

Stories you might also enjoy: