An empty page, be it a physical sheet of crisp, white paper or a "page" on a computer monitor, represents the same thing to anyone hoping to fill it up with meaningful prose: a sweet promise and a daunting challenge.
The empty page speaks to the writer subliminally. It's like a billboard: "YOUR IDEAS HERE." All fine and good if you can find some ideas worth pinning down. More accurately, the ideas are there, the writer's had them--quite likely for weeks or months or even years--but they are like birds swooping and diving your head. Try and lay your hands on one. Try and describe it. Try and find a good hook to snag a few readers. It is then, after a dozen or more attempts, that the sweet promise becomes the daunting challenge and the writer's confidence is shaken.
That is the moment I'm experiencing right now. A story of mine--Conservation--is up on Feedbooks, but I'm not happy with it and I've spent the last two or three weeks expanding the action. Existing scenes have been heavily revised while whole new parts have been added. My trouble is, it's all in outline form. Ten minutes ago I was staring at a blank page in Scrivener where the new beginning will go. It's still open at this very moment in the other monitor. I can see it in my peripheral vision...mocking me.
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