The Working Man

Part of the writing process often involves sitting back, looking over what you’ve done, feeling pleased and accomplished with yourself, and then ruthlessly cutting most of it during the edits.

My writer–brain screams in pain every time I do this. My editor–brain chuckles evilly.

One of the things I’ve seen over the years is that many people are afraid of cutting things. They have no problem going back and editing stuff but, when it comes to absolutely deleting entire paragraphs (or, oftentimes,...