Getting Started

It starts with a blank page.

Which can be the scariest part about attempting to create something out of nothing.

What if I don’t get any ideas?

How do I know people will like it? What if they don’t like it?

Over the past 13 years or so, I’ve stared at many blank pages. After a while, I got tired of staring and went ahead and jotted something down, whether it was words or music. Poetry or a piano solo. A short story or an orchestral score. A journal entry or a jazz tune. My process has evolved over the years from writing just piano music (over 100 solos) to writing for chamber groups (duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and more) and in the just the past 18 months, I’ve been quite obsessed with jazz (18 jazz charts.) Add to that music for two films, about 30 songs with lyrics, and several binders of “ideas.” I haven’t counted the poems and stories yet – I’ll get back with you on that.

I’ve been thinking for awhile about starting a blog about the creative process. How the page should look. What stories I could share. Who I should reach out to. Discussions we could have. But I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t see the end result, so I didn’t bother with starting.

So, rather than flesh everything out, and hash it out and tweak and hone before ever putting anything “out there,” I’ve decided to just start. With a blank page.

I hope you will visit again. I plan to fill out a blank page once a week, so please follow me and hold me to it.

--Becky Archibald
Your Creativity Ambassador

www.startwithablankpage.blogspot.com
www.beckysblogfromfrance.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/beckyarchibald1
www.beckyarchibald.com

Becky Archibald is an award-winning pianist, composer, recording artist and educator. Her piano CDs, Searching, The Long Ride Home, The Light at the End of the Blues, The Christmas One and Mood Swing are available at www.beckyarchibald.com. She also writes poetry and short stories – “Faith in Five Minutes” was published in Exceptional Parent Magazine, and in January 2010, “Miracle on 59th Street,” her play-by-play about her experience performing in Carnegie Hall, was published in Madison Magazine.