[Mia Mercado](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/what-is-writing-and-does-this-count-as-it), writing for The New Yorker, set up a “helpful” guide for those times when you are wondering if the thing you just did was actually writing. A few of the bullets –

• Writing is when you have an idea for a book and then spend three decades telling people about that idea.

• Writing is when you sit—fingertips hovering over your keyboard, cursor blinking on a fresh blank document—and open Twitter for the twenty-eighth time.

• Making lists of ideas, reading novels, scheduling time to sit down at your computer, researching new coffee shops at which to work, and establishing weekly word goals may seem like parts of writing, but they are not. They are procrastination, which, if you think about it, is actually writing in its purest form.

I’m quite good at that last one.