“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce
“As a writer, I can think of no greater terror than confronting a blank page, except perhaps the terror of being shot at.”
~ Richard Castle, Naked Heat
It seemed like such an good idea: I’d take myself to lunch. Tea. Croissant. And a blank journal. A blank journal may or may not be an ideal companion. Its pages stare mutely at you as you sit, pen poised, listening to the buzz of conversation around you. It doesn’t ask how your holidays went. It doesn’t inquire after friends, family, pets, or the traffic on the way over. It just sits and, in the words of Uncle Remus, “don’t say nothing”. So I sat among the people who had the good sense to bring a human to lunch and had a private conversation with myself, inside the world of the journal. And by the end of lunch, the journal was a little less blank and a little less mute. Not a bad way to start the new year.