Denial ain't a river, it's a dam

A dream delayed is a dream denied.

Yeah, I curbed from the old saying: Grief denied is only grief delayed.

And in my life, both statements have been proved true. There's a lot of ways to delay a dream--how many times have I hesitated to submit a story, wanting to rewrite it one more time until it's "just right?" Which, of course, it can never be. Too many times. How many times did I make excuses that I was too stressed or too tired or needed to do whatever, to keep myself from sitting down and writing? And when I was truly too tired to write, what kept me from prepping manuscripts, checking markets, or researching? Too, too many times.

Fear, of course. Somehow, it felt safer to delay the dream, as if acting to make it real would make it disappear. The opposite is true. Every delay denies the dream and enough delay and its destroyed.

So now, when I'm procrastinating (and yes, we all do it, me too) I ask myself: do I want to deny this dream? And I usually get back to work.

So, what do you do to deny your dreams?