Blank Pages

+Christie Chapman, you've created a monster.  One that needed a push to take that terrified first step out of the cave it called home and out into the light of the blogosphere.  For that, I love you.

Blank pages stare at you, taunting you like the freckle-faced ginger boy in your kindergarten class who called you sissy because your mother insisted on sending you to your first day of school in a cute little blue and white gingham-checked dress and lace-edged bobby socks.  They are thoughts not yet formed, dreams not yet conjured up by your subconscious, cakes that are just containers of raw ingredients waiting to be dumped into the bowl that is your imagination, stirred by the large wooden spoon that is your experience, and poured into the cupcake liners that is your unique touch or spin on reality.  Each writer and their own unique experience shape the content which flows forth from their pens or flows seemingly effortlessly onto the page via a laptop keyboard with a sticky “e” key (which does become rather bothersome rather quickly).   This is where I am happiest; among the blank pages, sitting in the relative silence of my bedroom tucked warmly and safely away with my trusted canine companion asleep at my right side and my husband sequestered in his room (we sleep separately, because he snores and I am a very light sleeper) using his laptop to watch a movie, play a game, or whatever it is he cares to do behind closed doors.  When time is mine to do with as I please, when there is no one making demands of me, nothing pressing that needs to be done at this very second or perhaps the world may cease to spin, the birds will stop singing at daybreak, and cats will no longer be the most shared and talked about thing on the internet; this is when I am happiest.  

Only at times like this, precious (sometimes stolen) moments of peace and quiet and serenity, does my creativity drive begin to power up.  I can hear the gears in the innermost portions of my brain begin to stir as if a small nest of mice has suddenly woken from its slumber to the sound of sugar cookie crumbs falling to the hardwood floor from a careless child’s snack.  Little scratching sounds of small gears as they turn, faint creaking noises as mental filing cabinets open and close searching for the right words and phrases.  These are the first signs of the magic that is to come:  the story that is beginning to take shape, come to life, and burst forth from my imagination, down my nerves, into my fingers that tingle with the heat of my passion for my craft, and tumble clumsily, yet orderly, onto the waiting page.  What it is about, who the characters are, what the plot will be, etc.  I must confess that I do not yet know.  Isn’t that the fun of it, though?  The not knowing is what excites me as a writer.  The endless possibilities are too vast to quantify.  And so, I plunge in and see where the current of my muses takes me.  Come, sail away with me.  This blog will take you on a most fantastical voyage into who I was, am, and may become.  Are you ready?

“Ha, little ginger boy, you booger-picking little bastard of a blank page.  I have bested you yet again.  I win!”

To the victor go the spoils (and the royalties, if I should be so lucky).