Quote of the Day: “I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
—Patrick Dennis

The “dirt” in my mind is mostly doubt and uncertainty, along with a dash or two of chaos, sprinkled liberally with muddlement. When I write anything it rarely remains as is. More often than not, it’s modified, reduced in size, tone or posture. It morphs. It’s often deleted. It it looks suspiciously like “good” writing, I throw the damned thing out and, hopefully, replace it with something truer to the story. All this processing and reprocessing is, of course, anguishing, but it’s far better than the alternative: procrastination. I’d much rather spend a day honing crap than not writing crap. However, now that I’ve broached the dreaded “P”-word, here’s a handy list of 101 excuses to put off writing … not that I’d ever stoop to using them.