GORDON’S ALIVE?
Mystery Solved — This Is Where Your Edited Words Go
What do you do with the words you cut out when editing?
“Well, what a massive waste of time and effort that was!”
Has editing your latest draft left you with a deluge of debris you wish you never wrote?
As a writer and proofreader, I’m used to cutting wads of words from my writing. When working on a document for another writer, I try to be a little less lively with the backspace key.
Talented fellow writer Evelyn Skye brought up the subject in a recent chat we shared:
“Writing a book is like assembling IKEA furniture. It makes sense in the beginning, then you’re holding 47 extra screws and wondering how you got here.” (Evelyn Skye, Substack Notes)
So, what do you do with all those extra bits?
My answer was simple:
Do you know what I do with those leftover flatpack screws?
I pop them in my toolshed as they may “come in for something later”.
And that is exactly what I do with the snippets I take out of my writing during the…
