The blank page

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Sue Vincent

It is ten o’clock at night and, having been up since six as usual, the blank page is staring at me with something akin to mockery. The post is due out in the morning and is, as yet, unwritten. Even worse… it has been a very busy day and I haven’t had chance to even think about what to write. The only thing to do is start; what then comes will be as much a surprise to me as to any reader.

That is the way I prefer to write, listening to the dictates of imagination, itself a blank page upon which we can write absolutely anything. Some writers plot every twist in a story, others just have the vaguest idea and write to see where the words lead them. Either way, their tale is born first in the imagination and, no matter from where it takes its inspiration, it can never have taken quite that form before. Writing and reading are an endless source of surprise and a constant reminder that we can revel in wonder.

It is an endless source of delight that within the same imagination worlds can be born within a grain of sand, caterpillars can talk and dragons discourse in iambic pentameter. We do not question their reality, because, within the imagination anything is possible. Their reality is their own and defined by their being, not the cold rules of science and probability.

We never know, from one moment to the next, what will happen within the landscape of the mind. It is an infinite playground, presenting amazement to the inner eye that looks on without so much a flicker of disbelief. What the imagination gives us is accepted without question for what it is, in much the same way as we viewed the world as children; a world where fairies could wait at the bottom of the garden and countries could be found beyond the wardrobe door.

It is only as we grow up that we begin to accept a world that tells us such things cannot exist. Our beliefs are constrained by the boundaries of a reality determined by physics and consensus. Yet the imagination admits no such restriction. It is the greatest freedom we have and a treasure available to all.

And imagination never grows old… or grows up.

About Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and a Director of The Silent Eye. She was immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintained a popular blog and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.M.Vasey. Sue lived in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She had a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. Sue  passed into spirit at the end of March 2021.
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40 Responses to The blank page

  1. The Happy Book Blog. says:
    May 31, 2019 at 06:27

    Love this!🙂

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  2. Victoria Zigler (@VictoriaZigler) says:
    May 31, 2019 at 08:23

    Well, of course the entrance can no longer be found in the wardrobe. It moves. I haven’t found where it now is though… I’ll keep looking, because I’m planning to go to Narnia. Just as soon as I find where the new entrance is, and figure out how to transport Hogwarts there too, so I can also go to Hogwarts.

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  3. besonian says:
    May 31, 2019 at 08:28

    Really lovely, Sue. Beautifully expressed – and so true. And although there are green shoots of a creative renaissance now struggling into the light, it’s still a very timely comment on the deadening hand of so much of present day society.

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  4. Alli Templeton says:
    May 31, 2019 at 09:12

    I’m very much in the ‘vaguest idea’ camp of chaos… the muse only whispers in my ear when I’m least expecting it, when it’s the least convenient moment or when I’m sitting amid a straggling mountain of papers and books. Planning a piece more than a couple of scribbled bullet points doesn’t work for me. And I’m all for fairies at the bottom the garden, or new worlds in the wardrobe. Glad you managed to fill your empty screen with such great insights, Sue. 🙂

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  5. Jennie says:
    May 31, 2019 at 13:08

    Imagination is inspiration!

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  6. trentpmcd says:
    May 31, 2019 at 14:15

    I think a new definition of “human” should be that we are creatures of imagination and storytelling. I just wish the rest of the world would get the message and stop being “creatures obsessed with wealth and power”….

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  8. joylennick says:
    May 31, 2019 at 16:39

    Great piece, as always, Sue. What an amazing place the mind is, and what strange and sometimes unexpected places it takes us to, aided by those magical 26 letters. Hugs xx

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  9. pensitivity101 says:
    May 31, 2019 at 18:01

    Love that last line Sue. Says it all!

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  10. Penny Wilson Writes says:
    May 31, 2019 at 18:27

    I love this, Sue. I am amazed over and over at what ends up on the page when I write. I hope it’s always that way! 🙂

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  11. willowdot21 says:
    May 31, 2019 at 20:02

    I really agree with this Sue, I write as I live, stream of consciousness. No planning, no vision or plot just blindly blundering forward.💜

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  12. Marilyn Armstrong says:
    May 31, 2019 at 21:09

    I think this is why I read fantasy so often. It keeps that tiny candle burning which says “There IS magic and one day, you’ll know how.” I also read a lot of history and fact-based material, but I find true joy in fantasy where everything and anything can happen … and might just happen to me.

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  14. Jerry Brotherton says:
    June 1, 2019 at 02:57

    Really loved this. My wife is always asking me, “When are you going to grow up and act your age?”
    I hope the answer will always be, “Never.”

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  15. Suzanne says:
    June 1, 2019 at 07:44

    I love the free flowing nature of this post. Your line about the imagination never growing old or growing up is delightful. You are so right – the world of our imagination is the one place where we can be truly free.

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  16. dgkaye says:
    June 2, 2019 at 00:58

    So true and so beautiful Sue. ❤

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