"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page."
--Stephen King, On Writing
On Writing is one of the best books I've ever read. In fact, it's the only Stephen King book I've ever read, and I've read it at least three times. The last line of this quote I've put on the first page of every single journal I've written in (or meant to write in). "You must not come lightly to the blank page." I've never had a problem with that. I'll sit and stare at a blank piece of lined paper, my pen tapping the table, for minutes that seem like hours. With my eyes, I'll beg my blank computer screen to please fill with these thoughts of mine, somehow, without me having to put myself out there. I am always heavy with possibility when I come to the blank page.
But I find when that page is filled...I feel lighter.
This is awesome. I read On Writing at least once a year. It's one of the best books about writing ever.
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