Writing is hard.

For most people, that’s a given. But for people like me, a student who is enrolled in Journalism and AP English Lang, writing is more than that. It’s a fact of life, as essential as reading, eating, sleeping. And I wouldn’t know where I’d be without it.

But yet, more often now than ever, I find myself staring at a blank screen. The page is white. The cursor is blinking, teasing me to get my fingers to hover over the keyboard.

Writer’s block. That’s the official name of this disease. Actually, it’s not a disease; for me, it’s a bad habit. The name is an excuse, one that should be as tolerated as “my dog ate my homework.” It’s a crutch for when my page won’t fill itself up, when my sentences won’t jump out of my hands, when my mind revises each word before a red pen ever hits the paper.

A man – a really wise man, in my opinion – once said that a blank piece of paper could be the scariest thing in the world. You were going to be the first, if not the only, person to make a mark on it. But that same man also said a blank piece of paper could be the most wonderful thing in the world – only YOU had the opportunity, the power to make that blank piece of paper yours and transform it into whatever you liked.

And that’s the attitude I want to take to my writing, to break that bad habit. I am in control of that blank piece of paper. I can revise countless times before I set down my first word, but I can also choose to push out whatever is in my head, to push the buttons on my keyboard, and then edit to my heart’s content. I cannot let the blank piece of paper scare me into making the essay or article perfect from the first stroke. Instead, I choose to embrace that opportunity to make that blank piece of paper my own.

Otherwise, when else will I get the chance?