Tyranny & the blank page

OK, I admit it - I have a complicated relationship with Barnes & Noble.

For one thing, the only books I ever buy these days are blank. I like to have at least 2 or 3 blank journals on deck at all times, for some reason. It feels good to have them sitting there on the bookshelf, waiting for the future to be scrawled on their pages. Of all the chain bookstores, Barnes & Noble really has the best selection of journals. So much so that I had a hard time choosing one this past weekend - there were several leatherbound versions that I really liked. Although one of them had a big brass medallion on the cover and looked like it ought to contain some kind scripture from the Priory of Sion, so I passed on that.

I can often spend the better part of an hour picking through the assortment, since I have rather particular requirements. I do prefer lined to unlined, but that's not a dealbreaker. It probably goes without saying that I have no use for anything with inspirational quotes or fuzzy pink covers. I also pass up anything with a page count less than the King James edition of the Bible - since I can burn through an average journal in 3 or 4 months, bigger is better. I have visions of trying to store these things in 10 or 15 years, and finding the space for a series of mismatched little notebooks with 6 weeks worth of entries.

The downside is that going to Barnes & Noble also means facing my deep-seated issues with my own unrealized potential (according to other people, anyway). The Union Square megastore in particular gives me a minor anxiety attack - it is mind-bendingly huge, the stacks rising like monoliths on all sides. Being confronted with that much reading material at once is overwhelming - it always makes me consider the fact that there are more books in the world that I could ever read in a lifetime, even if my reading habits weren't limited to the time I spend waiting in airports. And, quite frankly, books make me feel bad about myself.

Someone commented to me recently that it was funny how musicians need almost no incentive to be creative, whereas writers need to "force" themselves to write. I can't speak to the former since I'm only musically employed, as opposed to musically inclined; however I certainly can attest to the defeatist struggle with words. It's my own fault (as most things are, at the end of the day) for simply sitting around, thinking about writing instead of actually doing it. There are some nights when I even have to force myself to write in my journal. I can generally only muster the willpower for that because (to paraphrase my friend Jenny), if I don't write it down it's like it didn't happen. But when all is said and done, my journals end up in the trunk in my living room. I'd really like to write something for public consumption, and it's been an albatross I've carried around for a good long time.

"You should really do something with your writing," people tell me, as though its an antique lamp that I let lanquish unused in my garage. Sometimes I get motivated and think "They're right, I'm going to sit down and really be serious about this." Then I generally stumble into a Barnes & Noble and immediately feel defeated by the idea that any book I would write has already been written by someone who wasn't an unmotivated procrastinator and with a better vocabulary. Sigh.

I need to go home and confront my journal tonight - I didn't write anything last night, although I had plenty to record. It was after midnight by the time I got home, and I simply didn't have it in me. As for writing things that other people might actually see, I'm working on that.