Ready, Steady, Write! Day 1

On this blank page……..

On this blank page

Some people think a blank page is scary but, to me, a blank page is exciting because I’ve no idea yet what I could fill it with. It’s like that moment when you wake up and see that the garden has been covered with a thick fall of snow and you know that you’re going to be the first person to make footprints in it. You can use that snow to build a snowman or you can lie down in it and make snow angels. A blank page is just the same and, using your imagination, you could turn a blank page into literally anything!

What could you do with your blank page?

Try this. 

First find a piece of paper. It might be a notebook or a school book, the back of an envelope or a blank piece of printer paper. Then write ‘on this blank page’ as an opening line and see where it takes you. Let your pen or your pencil be like the footprints in the snow and follow it wherever it wants to go. You don’t have to write in full sentences. You don’t need to write in straight lines. You don’t even need full stops if you don’t want them. This is your blank page and you can do whatever you want with it.

Here’s what I wrote when I tried this exercise.

On this blank page I could write the shortest story or the longest novel. I could write using only vowels or just consonants, leave out the full stops and the commas, scrawl my words into one long sentence that runs off the page and takes on a life of its own, wriggling like a snake down the hallway, sliding under the front door, burrowing its way under the neighbour’s hedge, coming out on the riverbank. I could turn this blank page into a boat and sail it down the river or fold my words into its wings and fling it from the window. I’ve got a blank page and anything could happen.

Now it’s your turn. Ready, steady, write!