Staring At The Blank Page Before You Novels & Stories

No ending. I stared at the empty pages, my annoyance sharpening into a bitter disappointment. It felt like a personal betrayal. I had waded through all that darkness, all that pain, for nothing. No resolution. No answers. Just… a void. A strange sense of loss washed over me, a hollow ache for a story that felt incomplete, for characters I didn’t even know. And a part of me—the stupid, curious part that I hated right now—couldn’t let it go. Why the blank pages? Was it a mistake? A metaphor? The questions itched under my skin, another frustrating mystery in a day that was already overflowing with them.

Vincenzo Moreno I flexed my fingers and sat upright, placing myself in a better position for ease of typing. Okay, here we go.... The blank monitor stared at me, or rather, it sneered at me. Nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Nothing! Should be about an hour now since I grabbed my laptop. An hour had passed since I took my seat, ready to begin my term paper, but there had been zero progress. Niente! Shutting my eyes, I cracked my neck—summoning up my mojo. No need to give up. I knew I got this. And so, I reopened my eyes and looked straight at the keyboard. Uno, due, via!

I had seen the evidence of it with my own eyes tonight, in the way Ethan had positioned himself as the attentive devoted fiancé and in the way Vivian's eyes had gone to that door before she could stop them. It was working exactly as I had designed it. I reached into my bag and pulled out my notebook and turned to the page I hadn't been able to stop thinking about since I left the fourteenth floor. The page that had two words at the top and nothing below them. Why me. I looked at the blank space beneath it. I had a pen in my hand, held it over the page and I had nothing. Just the blank page and two unanswered questions sitting in the same room as each other.

"Who told you to display a fake score report?" The technician shook his head frantically. "This is the live result pulled directly from the official system!" Lydia refused to believe him and checked on her own phone. Her face became paler by the second. "How could this be?" My father seemed to remember something. He pointed at me and roared, "What exactly did you do in the testing center?" I told him the truth. "I turned in a blank exam. So what?" Daphne stared at me in disbelief, panic plain on her face. "How could you turn in a blank exam?"

"Then open your eyes and look." I slammed the Enter key. In the next second, the office monitor lit up. So did the long row of electronic screens outside, the ones that usually displayed model students and honor roll lists. The corridor, loud as a marketplace moments earlier, fell silent. Everyone looked up. On the screen was my exam answer sheet. It was blank. Every section stood empty. In the essay box, drawn in thick black ink, was a huge turtle. Beside it, scrawled in wild, arrogant strokes: [What are you staring at? Never seen someone turn in a blank paper?]

I’ve not yet lived long enough to make massive mistakes or allow myself to fall into any terrible vices but living through someone else’s addiction, as their personal punching bag, that was eye-opening enough. “Ok,” Dr. Bricks says, calling an end to our writing. “Let's see what we have written out, shall we? Faith, would you like to go first?” Feeling shy, I turn red and hug my notebook to my chest. I shake my head ‘no’ violently. She nods at me. “That’s ok. Grace or John?” she asks, looking between them. My mom goes red and avoids eye contact, and my dad sighs deeply. “I suppose I can go.” He breathes heavily as he slowly turns his notepad around, revealing it as blank. Not a single word i

I flipped to a blank page, twirling the pencil between my fingers. What should I draw? For a few moments, I stared at the page, but my hand seemed to know before my mind did. The pencil moved almost on its own. Sharp jawline. Firm mouth. A shadow of stubble. Before I knew it, the blank face of a man was staring back at me from the paper. I froze. “Oh, no. Nope. Absolutely not.” I flipped the page. Then flipped it back again. I hadn’t drawn in years, so maybe I could count this as practice. A way of enjoying my solitude.