Cold Comfort
by Joseph Nutman
If you write or would like to, you and I have a common enemy – the blank page.
A moment ago I was staring at the unforgiving expanse of it, as cold and impassive as Arctic tundra, trying to lure ideas to my sled of thought so I might harness them like huskies to it – the end result being that we travel from one end of this snowy waste to the other.
That is essentially what a writer does – transport you from one end of the page to the other – until you reach your destination: the end. If a writer does their job well the pages will fly by as if miles of field from the window of a speeding (and on time) train, you'll be enjoying the view with your feet up and contemplating treating yourself to an overpriced Kit-Kat and a G&T from the snack trolley.
The trouble is – you're with me, and I do not actually know where I am, where I want to take you, or how to get there. So instead of successfully helping you pass some time through the medium of words I have set out half-cocked and found myself swallowed in the blizzard of this page, in the middle of nowhere, short on supplies and with fading daylight. I dropped my flare gun somewhere a couple of paragraphs back when I was gesticulating about the size of the tundra, the ground is dotted with frozen shapes dusted in frost that look suspiciously like other writers who've been waylaid out here, my teeth are chattering (not just from the cold), wolves are howling in the distance... and if you have read this far then you are here too. A fine mess we find ourselves in.
Do me a favour will you? Snap your fingers, clap your hands, sing Bon Jovi – anything to break the immersion. Done it? Phew. Thanks. Now we are out of that metaphorical wilderness we can talk candidly. I will be honest with you, when I sat down to write this piece for SoW I had no idea what I was going to write. They gave me an idea or two, they were rather good, but I didn't feel I could do them justice yet, so I just kinda sat there.
I had been staring at the page for about twenty minutes, and, well, nothing. Nothing happened. This is not particularly unusual. I was about to give up when I felt the cool air come through the open window, the feeling that summer is over, Autumn whispering in, Winter laughing behind, and this white page. That's about the moment my brain sparked to life like two stones being knocked together.
What else is white? Snow! I quite like snow, I am imagining myself making a snow angel right now when I should be writing – maybe you are too. That's too nice a thought, I feel stranded and frustrated by the barren nature of this landscape that I am trying to grow words from, Arctic tundra is better. It isn't possible to grow bountiful words from such an environment, maybe our best bet is to just try and get to the other side in one piece – words as footprints, or sled tracks, or a damn train.
It is in this manner that we have arrived here. I want that to bring solace to you when you are confronted with a blank page in front of you, or the thought of a blank page stopping you from stepping up to write.
When I started this piece I had no lightning bolt of inspiration hitting me, my Muse didn't touch me with any divine afflatus – the only thing that happened was showing up to write.
Sometimes you will be hit with an idea that you simply have to act on, literally from nowhere – BOOM – and it will tickle you pink. Sometimes an idea will percolate over time, and when you're ready you'll sit down and work on it (now is a good time). The rest of the time you just show up and commit to follow whatever train of thought pulls into the station, it doesn't matter what it is, the point is to be writing – anything is better than nothing when you are trying to get from one side of the page to the other.
Now we are here, I am actually quite happy with where we've ended up. Now stop writing your name in the snow and pass the cocoa.