The best part...

...of writing is that sometimes you start and it stinks. It stinks and it stinks and you keep writing it even though the whole time instead of the voice of the story, all you can hear in your head is the voice of reality saying how much it stinks.

And say you HAVE to keep writing, like you've blabbed your big fat mouth all over the wide world of the world wide web that you're not only going to write this book, but it's going to be 50,000 words and you're going to write it in a month. And say you've even bragged about how much fun it is going to be to write this book that has, so far, no plot, no beginning middle or end, and only the hint of an idea and the vaguest sense of who the main character is.

You keep writing until you just can't take it and it is absolutely no. fun. at. all. You write 2,000 words, if you can even call this drivel "words" or "writing" and you couldn't care less if they get saved or tossed into the abyss.

So you trash them. And you start over with absolutely nothing, not even that vague notion of a character or the hint of idea. You start with "Once upon a time," because you have no idea what else to say.

And when you get to the word "time," you keep typing and typing and the words fly off your fingers and you don't have to think about them at all because it's like you're channeling from some invisible and extremely generous ghost whom you also find hilarious.

And when you have to stop, you are disoriented and wonder for a moment at finding yourself not in Principal Caukler's office with Ant and Devra but at your mom's house.

And before you have to go join real life, you look it over, just in case.

And it is so good it makes you smile and think that you can't wait to get back to it tomorrow.