I sit here again to confront my old nemesis, the blank screen, as I have so many mornings before. It has been an ongoing battle of many years, especially during that time when I was putting up at least one blog post a day, every day, for years in a row. It is a common problem many of us face, how do we get started? It is more of a problem when what we are doing is very public, like a blog post. What will my readers think? Will this be a profound statement? Will this be art? Will this be just something that fills the page?

I've often ended up writing blog posts that lack profundity, that I'm sure various people reading it will wonder why I even bothered spending the time writing it. My daughter's master's thesis and upcoming book, Don't' Make Art, Just Make Something, captures an idea, actually, many ideas, about getting started.

Yet I'd like to suggest that many of us have already started. How many of you have doodled on the sides of various pieces of paper? I doodled a lot more when I was younger. How many of you arrange your room or prepare a meal as a creative outlet? For me, one of my creative outlets is paper clip art.

I've always fidgeted. I've often take paper clips and bent them into new creative shapes. Yesterday, at work, I took a few paper clips to make a miniature abstract paperclip sculpture. I then arranged it in front of a BuddhaBoard my daughter had gotten me for Christmas, which I drew a question mark on. I placed a penny in front of the whole layout and cleared the area of my desk around it.

Perhaps it isn't art, maybe it is, but at least it is something, something that conquers the nemesis of the blank page.

Don't make art, just make something.