Why is it that the phrase I thought so perfect — so apropos! — leaps suddenly off the page as miserably imperfect? I’ve either got too much or too little of whatever I should or shouldn’t have.
I rewrite. Ah, ha! The sentence flows. Or does it?
No, it has paused. Now stopped abruptly. Perhaps I’ve overwritten.
Is that better? Hmmm.
If this were paper, I’d tear the sheet and ball it, practicing my free throw at the waste basked. Instead, I hit delete. Whole chapters, entire pages, highlighted and subjected to CTRL-X. Because I liked them once, considered them fluent and well crafted, they’ve gone into an Extras file. A few sentences, a paragraph or two, may sneak back into another chapter. Most will never see the light of my eyes — and certainly never yours — again.
Considering that I write with views like the above just out my cockpit doors, I can’t complain. I will just write and rewrite and then rewrite again until I cobble it all together, draft the proposal, and send it on to my agent. (Terry, you are the very best.)
