Fear flushes clogged pores of perception. - Ralph Keyes

Find tricks to keep yourself going,” William Least Heat Moon once advised a group of aspiring writers. “Anything you can do to trick yourself out of panicking, do it.

Christopher Isherwood tried to trick a good topic into rising from his unconscious by irritating it, “deliberately writing nonsense until it intervenes, as it were, saying, ‘All right, you idiot, let me fix this.

Those who generate fog are Wizards of Oz hoping desperately that nobody pulls the curtain to reveal a trembling little writer behind it. This seldom happens. Readers who dare to point out that incomprehensible writing can't be comprehended risk being told that the problem is theirs.