The blank page.

Medium.

An online platform for people who wants to write and publish what they write to an audience.

It is great. I read stuff there I couldn't have read anywhere else. It is (sometimes) entertaining. It is (sometimes) educational. Often it is reflections and some kind of self realisation pieces. And very often it is writing about writing and how to be a better writer or even just to become one that writes.

Writing starts with a blank page.

From there it is a matter of persistence and bravery. It is like the matador, alone in the bullfighting arena against the bull.

The blank paper against you. 

A blank page.

You (me)?

The idea is not to give up, just start somewhere, then it could go by it self.

At least that's what I read two days ago in yet another of those many stories about how to write.

So that is exactly what I'll do.

Just write.

Fill the blank page with?

In the past month, more or less, I've been using writing prompts to get started. It is a wee app I've installed here on my iPad - yeah, I have got used to use my iPad for writing. I like the hammering on the touch screen a lot more that using a laptop keyboard -or any keyboard in fact- and I really like the writing app I am using -  so, every day, when I normally sit down to write, I open that app and it gives me a prompt, somewhere or something to start writing about.

That has helped, in some ways. 

Now though, it has started to bore me a bit with its often superficial prompts.

So once again I look into the writing tips and advice I've read about to seek guidance. Hmm. I have been thinking back to my school days when we were asked to write pieces, papers and small essays.

Man, how I hated writing back then.

I remember how we also got subjects to write about from the teacher. "What did you do on holiday?" Or what about this: "do you prefer dogs or cats, and why?"

I was so lazy. I just wanted to go outside to play and run around, and many times that's what I did and so, the papers never got made until the very last moment -which sometimes was early in the morning on the day they were due- and, of corse, therefore they were utterly rubbish. Or piss, like they would say it in Scotland.

Getting those subjects I thought back then, was a limitation of my individual creativity and a restraint on my imagination so therefore I convinced myself that I would prefer it when we were given no specific subject - or a prompt- to write about. Just write what came into our mind.

Blank page.

Only then I shamefully realised that if there was no given subject or prompt, I absolutely didn't have any idea what to write about.

Blank page.

One of the ideas or suggestions I've read about lately is that you try to imagine who you are writing to or for.

Ok, now I'm writing to this blog of mine that I have started. The problem is that no one knows anything about it and I don't tell anyone as I am afraid people would laugh and think; " what a load of utter rubbish"!

So that is who I'm writing to, no one. 

Why bother then?

Blank page.

Like a pilot at training flying a simulator, or rather simulating he is flying.

This is like me now. I could write in a little greasy notebook here in my kitchen and hide it away in a drawer so no one could ever see it. Or I could write and simulate that someone actually might see it published on a blog that no one knows anything about. 

To get practice. I could say. And because I like it. Because I feel I have to do it. Because I feel good doing it.

A page with four words.

A prompt.

Sometimes there is a need for an ignition, something unexpected to start a chain of associations.

To put on that blank page, as a start.

Prompts.

Before the words are coming out as a natural stream of sense.