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I was trying to think of an idea I could use for today's post when I remembered an article I had read earlier by some woman who really loves well-fitting white t-shirts. I thought I could write about how that related to me, and I got through about two paragraphs of rather banal musings about my shirts before I decided that this idea wasn't going anywhere. I had no choice but to start over if I was to write anything decent.

I could have muscled through it if I was prepared to settle for something lousy. I guess I've posted lousy writing before, although I've never looked at a post, known with certainty that it was lousy, and put it out anyway. The thing is that even though I could have compromised and sent something beneath my standards (such as they are), it would only have taken more time than starting over and writing something decent.

It's interesting to me how the professionals will do just what I decided not to. Someone will write a script, and that script will be none too good. Instead of getting trashed, it bounces around from one writer to another, one studio to another, constantly being re-written and associated with different people in front of and behind the camera. Why do they expend all this effort? They do it because of the effort expended already.

I might have done that too. I could have spent a while longer flailing around with my original idea because of the flailing I'd already done. I would have wound up with something lousy and done it in more time than if I'd just started over. Instead I recognized the folly of pushing my existing words around like they were unwanted peas on a plate, and I started over. Maybe I wound up with only the slightly better idea of writing about the process of writing, but it was something, and I don't feel as bad sending it out.