it's really only 100 words...

... but I've been staring at the computer screen all day, alternately trolling my bookmarked websites for updates or idly stalking people on facebook.

100 words. No big deal. In fact, I am pretty sure I will surpass that in the next three minutes of typing here, explaining to myself and the hinternets why I am incapable of finishing off what we all know is a task I am more than capable of.

I think that's the point. That I can do it. That I know I can do it. In fact, it is so abundantly clear to me that writing this damn paragraph is something THAT I CAN DO WELL, that I feel as though just calling up the potential employer and explaining what lovely paragraphs I write would be a better use of my time.

And also, if I don't write it, I can't screw it up.

That's the other side of my bi-polar literary paralysis: the numbing fear that somehow I won't be good enough, that my 100 words will suck so insanely much that I will hear the editors' guffaws all the way from Toronto. Because they are like that in Toronto: they guffaw.

I also know that I write best when I am so stressed that I secrete terror and exhaustion from my pores. Fear is my greatest motivator, and over the years I have learned that I will procrastinate until I am so wound up with anxiety that I am about to puke, and then I will sit down and write killer stuff. It's 8 pm now. The 100 words are due at 3pm tomorrow. I figure I've got another 2 hours before I really light on fire.

Maybe they'll see my hair burning from TO.

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