It is so very difficult to face the blank page. Stories and sentences and words and ideas float around in my head at all times of day and night, but sitting in front of a blank page, my mind feels as empty as the screen is white.

Something my mind has been chewing on lately is a phrase that a writer friend used when we had coffee last week. She said “if you can catch the words…” while she was talking about her own writing.

Catch the words. Catch them, like a leaf or a flower petal floating to the ground, or a butterfly in the garden …. that makes sense to me. Writing is like trying to catch the words. They are there; they are floating around; but the difficulty is in catching them, and getting them down onto the intimidating, blank page.

Another obstacle is seeing and hearing those words while I am being bombarded all day long with media, information, advertising, emails, interpersonal communication … how very challenging to be able to see, hear, and catch those words through all of that information and stimulation on a daily basis.

And then later in the day, when there might be “free” time, without the bombardment of information, my mind is too tired to listen and pay attention. The butterflies are gone…