When I finally admitted that a paragraph did not belong in my novella, I cut it and sent it to the word cemetery for burial. Writers always kill their darlings though. We are accustomed to letting go and moving on, and our words learn to live with it.
The night of the cutting though, beneath moon-shimmer, my left-for-dead words arose, crept off together into the world and, in their innocence, stepped beyond the pale. But there, in that wilderness, the words gathered experience and cultivated their own ideas about what they should become. In time, they grew into a poem. At last they danced, but with a rhythm and an emotion true to their origin.
“Adventures of an Alaskan Barfly” would not be if I had left those words where they were, because nothing dances where it does not belong. So I continue, in what may be perceived as cruelty, to cut. So sorry, my darlings. You will thank me later.
(“WTF?!” artwork for the cover of Gargoyle #58 is by digital illustrator, Cintia Gonzalvez. If you are wondering, Papa, “WTF?!” means “Why the frown?!”)
Adventures of an Alaskan Barfly
Step out. Light up.
Beyond, the pale
January snow bank and moon-shimmer
melts
this darkness…
<<read more>>
~ Gargoyle #58, Paycock Press – get it at Amazon.com
WordLoft by Natalie McNabb 