I'm so tensed up

 

Verb Tenses exerpted from Grammarly

Verbs come in three tenses: past, present, and future. The past is used to describe things that have already happened (e.g., earlier in the day, yesterday, last week, three years ago). The present tense is used to describe things that are happening right now, or things that are continuous. The future tense describes things that have yet to happen (e.g., later, tomorrow, next week, next year, three years from now).

The following table illustrates the proper use of verb tenses:

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
I read nearly every day.	Last night, I read an entire novel.	I will read as much as I can this year.
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
I am reading Shakespeare at the moment.	I was reading Edgar Allan Poe last night.	I will be reading Nathaniel Hawthorne soon.
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
I have read so many books I can’t keep count.	I had read at least 100 books by the time I was twelve.	I will have read at least 500 books by the end of the year.
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
I have been reading since I was four years old.	I had been reading for at least a year before my sister learned to read.	I will have been reading for at least two hours before dinner tonight.

I’ve been writing for years and never knew there were so many variations on tense. Typical critique group comments go something like get rid of “was” in was drinking and write drank. Something always bothered me about it but I did not protest. The bother was in the feeling that I wanted to show continuous action. Was is alos associated with passive verbs. She was devastated can be mistakenly changed into She devastated. This changes the meaning and should be avoided. Perhaps I’m not saying anything you don’t know but if this helps just one of my friends then this post will have been worth it.