Blankness and the blessed backspace

I was the kind of kid adults loved giving journals to. And it wasn’t a bad gift idea: anyone could see how much I loved reading, and so it was assumed that writing wasn’t far behind. Not so gradually a shelf in my bedroom filled with beautiful blank books.

I was probably 9 when I noticed that I would, without doubt, receive a journal that year for my birthday, as I had for birthdays immemorial. But my suspicions were raised when I considered why, if Santa were, in fact, omnipotent, he gave me a journal yet again knowing full well I’d not cracked last Christmas’s beautiful blank book.

The beauty to me, even then, in all those blank journals lay in the blankness.

But it wasn’t just beauty that preserved those pages. There was a block. There arose in me a block to filling any of these diaries. The idea of marking a page felt impossible to me, for I knew full well the imperfection inevitable of any inky passages I would attempt… and inevitably abandoned. Better to admire the covers and keep the interiors blank, I thought. Better to preserve the promise than to guarantee the disappointment.

And yet there are a fair few beautiful journals I have written in, with three, four, or maybe even five pages of writing. And oh how lovely I’ve tried to make each title page as if to inspire the imprint of beauty in the pages to come. But the block of any enduring writing practice was stubborn.

And so it could have been that I never would have done much writing had I not been born when I was. For in the middle of my teenage years, exactly when I most needed to write without fear of failure, laptops became commonly available.

How I adore—present tense—the backspace button.

What a superb invention! It allowed me to debate that very exclamation mark without fear of reprisal from roughly scrubbed eraser or pitiless pen. (I went for it, the exclamation mark that is, and it was a thrill.) How well the backspace compensates for every mistake, supports refinement of thought, and hones a narrative with greater precision.

And what a miracle the non-analog copy and paste is—where are the odes to thee? Suddenly my thoughts could accelerate as they flowed like endless rain into a paper cup, to paraphrase my teenage self’s favorite McCarthy/Lennon tune. I could write and write, then lift off the accelerator, move through my thoughts, and rearrange them with the greatest deliberation and flexibility.

I never closed a journal with such satisfaction as I would close the screen to my laptop, let alone re-opened it was such joy. Of course, the journals kept coming—I didn’t come from the kind of family that could gift a new device every birthday and Christmas—and I continued to cherish the beauty of their covers on my shelf, without the regret over the blank pages inside.

I am a mother now. I buy journals and the like often enough for my children. I delight in the ponderings held therein but do not mind when they are confined to the first three to five pages. The other leaves are filled liberally with drawings, declarations of sisterly hate, and of course year-round Christmas lists. Often all that remains of a page is a jagged edge, while its body is folded or torn somewhere far beyond its binding.

I care not. All I care is that they write and they do so freely, without confinement or concern. Some day they will have access to the marvels of typing, deleting, and copy & pasting. They may even have the bravery to publish or post what they type. All I care about is that they write.

Writing, as I see it, is as important as hugging. It’s as important as talking. It’s as important as living. For writing is the manifestation of a thought or a feeling in such a way that it may leave your body in order to imprint on another. This is why we write. It is an act of bravery, of connection, of compassion, of self-realization, of memory, and generosity. It’s hard like the best things are, and it is vital, just like the best things are.

Now I’m a writing coach, the professional equivalent to being the kind of adult who loves giving everyone a journal. But, job title aside, I think as much about blank pages, or blinking cursers, as about writing. How can we shift the alluring promise and paralysis of perfect beauty embodied by a blank page? How can we learn to embrace that writing is a process of imperfect creation?

So the next time you stare at your screen, feel all the opportunity that lies at the upper reach of your right hand’s pinkie. Let your other fingers dance and play without concern of perfection, then bring down that backspace button with glee, and for once be glad you are alive in the age of the personal computer.