Culling Files

Friday, November 23, 2012

Enough of this, I thought as I scrolled through my computer files. Something had to give, and so for the last three weeks (one day a week) I've been culling or purging drafts of stories, poems, and essays. Each of them got started with good merit and intention, then revised once, twice, some more than that. In fact, a few had so many revisions that if I were to print them out, I could wallpaper my writing room.

I decided to keep the ones that ignited a spark as I reread them, and make them a priority for finalization in the upcoming year. I'll do my best to salvage what I can before I part with those. Other snippets of prose and poem have already knitted themselves into something new. A larger plan hangs over those early word attempts, and if you could see me now, you'd know I was smiling. They will go somewhere; they will become something, and if it all leads to thinking just can't make them work, I'll have to double-ax them. Always a tough thing to let go, isn't it?