I should be writing

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I'm supposed to be writing.

I have a ten page paper due next week, a thirty page paper the week after that, and somehow, I was supposed to have managed ten minutes of journal writing every day for the last month and a half.

The problem of ten minutes of journal writing every day is that frequently in ten minutes of journal writing my greatest efforts net me "Friday, May 16, 2008." Of course, in the following ten minutes I may just be able to pull off two or three pages, but those first ten minutes usually leave very little to show.

So yes, I have quite a bit of writing to do.

And that isn't even taking into account the letters sitting on my desk at work. This week was not nearly as productive as some weeks, I think I only managed maybe 25 letters. And all week long, as I peaked into my file drawers to take stock of the piles tucked away or I made up another reason as to why I should go check the level of paper in the printer, I heard the sound of many excuses marching to the rhythm of "I should be writing, I should be writing, I should be writing."

And friends, the sad truth is that "should be writing" is the worst sort of writing there is.

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