New RHP Prose entry

The next prose competition at Red Hot Pawn has begun, which means I can now safely post my entry for the last one. Enjoy:

The Blank Page (491 words) It sits there, an A4 sized piece of malevolency, staring up at me. It taunts me from the desk, daring me to try and fill it up, yet I cannot. As soon as I confront that yawning emptiness, I clam up; it freezes my creativity and binds my imagination.
I reach for a pen, flick it’s lid off and hold it, poised above the paper in an attempt to complete the circuit between brain and page. Somehow, the flow of inspiration must start; surely I cannot go on like this forever?
Closing my eyes, I can see the story unfold, but then I open them again and it’s gone, retreating back into the recesses of my brain as if it too is fearful of that terrible Blank Page.
This confrontation is played out all too frequently. So many times have I come up against the Blank Page and so many times have I failed. Too often have I sat there, late into the night, desperate for some inspiration, desperate to plumb the depths of my mind and confer the results to paper.
I have had some victories, but even they have been bittersweet. On the rare occasion that I do take that first step and begin to fill the Blank Page, what I fill it with is almost exclusively awful. Something about the way the prose is put together simply doesn’t feel right. Somehow, between my mind and the page, it has been warped into something barely readable.
Some may say this is a battle I will never win, that I should give up before it drives me crazy. But I cannot simply quit. It would be akin to an asthmatic giving up breathing because it causes him too many problems.
If I quit now, I will be driven to madness anyway by the constant flow of ideas and concepts for which I would have no vent. All of that creativity floating around my mind with no outlet would tip me over the edge as surely as trying and failing.
One day I shall vanquish my nemesis, after all the pen is mightier than the sword, but it may take some time. Perhaps when life outside of writing calms down somewhat, I will be more able to devote my entire concentration the task of overcoming the beast.
Real life is the ultimate ally of the Blank Page. Relationship problems, financial problems and, of course, the dreaded Day Job - all of these things prey on my mind, stifling my creativity and slowly driving me to distraction.
But now it seems I have found a solution. How effective it will be, only time will tell. ‘Write about writing’ someone suggested to me. The fruits of that labour you are just about to finish reading. With any luck it will spur me on to new literary horizons. Like everything, practice makes perfect, and the first step is always the hardest.