The Irresistible Attraction of a Blank Page

Yours Truly On Writing…

I love writing. I usually start with a word or short phrase as a headline or punchline. And I have to admit I’m a sucker for alliterations, rhymes, puns and juxtapositions. Some writers look for titles suited for Search Engine Optimization (SEO),but I’d rather be clever, funny or surprising, because I just have fun writing.

My ideal format is 500 words or even a little less, seldom over 1,000. I think about those few words that started the process, maybe a few minutes, maybe a day or two. Then I write my piece all at once, usually on my iPad, occasionally on my iPhone. And, because Substack is a little unstable on the smaller devices, I often have to go to my MacBook to be able to actually publish my writing. The green button on the top right for CONTINUE and on the bottom right for PUBLISH often stay outside my screen on the smaller devices with no ability to reach them by scrolling up or down. But I don’t do much editing or revising. I usually try to proofread once before unleashing my epistles. That’s it. I have written over 1000 blog posts in the almost 16 years I’ve been doing this. So that is well over 500,000 words, or by now the equivalent of Les Miserables, or (no inferred comparison beyond word count), 2/3 of the Bible or War and Peace plus Gone With the Wind combined.

My writing program, because I can’t call it a full-fledged word processor, is Simplenote, made by WordPress. It instantly updates whatever I write on all my devices so it’s no trouble too pick up my iPhone and make a quick edit to something I wrote on my iPad or to copy and paste my piece onto Substack and then postpone a publishing time and date on my MacBook.

For me, formatting is a distraction. That comes after the work is finished. This is what Simplenote looks like:

So clean and simple…