Sounds like it could be a bad horror movie, but fear of the blank page (metaphorical in the case of computer graphics and 3-d work of course)  is a real affliction. There shold be 12 step programs and weekend long retreats where the afflicted are surrounded by unaltered materials and computers with not a word on them. There is just something about a virgin sheet of paper, the perfectness of a block of clay not yet cut, a empty square on the computer screen that can just freezes a person. I know. I use to be one of them.

It really isn’t a fear of the nothingness before me that would keep me from starting a project. I have never been bereft of ideas. But rather I was afraid that the perfect picture in my mind would not come out whole, would morph into some mutilated twin who rise up to chase off the beautiful one forever from my mind. I knew that as soon as I put pencil to paper or start hitting the computer keys that empty space would be permanently transformed and the birth of a new creation had begun. There is no stopping it then. Even if I did stop what I was doing, whatever was before me would be my creation, my child of sorts. And for years, I put way too much value on each and every thing I transformed.

I am still this way to an extent. I do hold a great reverence for ‘what could be’ and sometimes will take a moment to savor the possibilities before getting to work. But I have learned to be more excited about seeing what will come of my attempts than worried about failing my vision. As a matter of fact, I have found that letting the vision guide me rather than trying to bring it to life wholesale results in most remarkable final creations.

And I get a lot more done too.