Short update on the book. Over the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of pages whittled down in the edits. I’m nearly 1/2 way through the book on a 3rd draft. The content has been hard. It brings back a lot of stuff I’d rather not think about. Getting the words down the first time was cathartic, but this is just rehashing stuff I don’t want to think about anymore. Maybe that means I’ve made progress. I don’t know.
Today was not a day I worked on the book, but rather had paperwork to fill out and phone calls and emails to make. Sometimes we have days like that.
As I trim the book down to what it needs to be, I am discovering what needs to stay to tell a story, and what can be lost. The flavor of the story is still there, in spite of paragraphs, scenes, and entire chapters being removed.
Just like life, over time, we get distance and perspective. We hold onto the things that mattered and we forgive and forget the rest. The important pieces stay with us and with those comes context, even if we let go of the clarity of it. The specifics. Sometimes we tell ourselves the stories over and over again to remind ourselves of the meaning of it, where it all came from, the lessons we needed to learn from it.
Some of those chapters can be lost.
Today, I remembered how I used to read to my kids before bedtime. I used to sing them songs like the Itsy-Bitsy Spider. They won’t remember any of those things. So, I will remember it for them.
Wendigo Mountain 