The labyrinthine page

"You can always edit a bad page.
But you can't edit a blank page."

    

      I've been seeing this quote on social media a lot lately, and it's true as far as it goes. But there are hazards involved with filling up a page, and they often go unexamined. Because every word choice constrains the next choice. "A" rather than "an" means that you have eliminated all words with a vowel in the choice of the following word. The word "I've" in at the head of my first sentence locked in the tense for the fo...