I particularly liked the paragraph that starts with “It is humbling to consider writing as collage.” You then speak of writing as harvesting and again as a crumpled dollar bill. It made me think of my short-lived venture into teaching creative writing, which I called “story sculpture,” yet another metaphor that fit me perfectly at the time. I still use it, feeling like editing out words is like trimming clay off a sculpture, or sawing off part of a papier-mâché that doesn’t work.
I particularly liked the paragraph that starts with “It is humbling to consider writing as collage.” You then speak of writing as harvesting and again as a crumpled dollar bill. It made me think of my short-lived venture into teaching creative writing, which I called “story sculpture,” yet another metaphor that fit me perfectly at the time. I still use it, feeling like editing out words is like trimming clay off a sculpture, or sawing off part of a papier-mâché that doesn’t work.