thoughts
the tyranny of the blank screen
I don't remember exactly where I heard it -- it could have been on an episode of "Frasier" -- but I remember someone one time speaking about the "tyranny of the blank page". That is to say, when one is trying to write for whatever reason, the first few words are always the hardest ones to get out. The same thing happens to painters...the first brushstroke is the hardest one to make on the blank canvas.
Today, after staring at my monitor, fingers not moving, for about twenty minutes, it occurred to me that this could be extended to web site design. I mean, think about it. You've got nothing but a blank screen except a
<html></html>
staring right back at you. What are you going to design?
The situation combines the problems of the above two. You have total control over both text and graphics -- compounding your situation. You want everything to mesh, to make sense when looked at on the whole. You want it to say something...to speak to the viewer, whether it makes them laugh, cry, or think.
In addition to that, you've got the worry that anyone will look at the thing at all. If you design a site, you like the idea of people coming to your site and looking at it. Otherwise, why are you designing it? When you start thinking about that, those two lines of HTML etch further into your brain.
Sometimes I know exactly what I'm going to do when I sit down at the computer, ready to design. Other times I don't really know, but I get inspiration from somewhere. But I've had a lot of those times where I just stare at those two lines and say, "What am I going to do with this?"
So I don't really have a solution. But it was fun writing about the problem. In this case, for me, it alleviated it.