I was reading an interview with a writer, and suddenly I realized the importance of his opinion regarding literature with embroidery, in which you go over and over with the unnecessary ribbons and paths of words.
According to him, a good writer knows how to clean the manuscript to the back bones. It’s when we have tons of words in front of us, and we start to lapidate, clear, unclutter, purge.
This can be a painful act, because we get hung on certain words, certain feelings, certain phrases, but we shouldn’t hold on to them just because we wrote them.
Those words can actually distract the reader and detour and interrupt the flow of the article.
You have to be hard on yourself. Let go of the things that even though you were in love with, it jeopardizes the final result. Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday is a great time for that, to reflect not only on the things you wrote in paper, but in life.
As the Torah says… “On Rosh Hashanah it’s written, on Yom Kippur it’s sealed.”
When I edit myself, only one in 10 times I will add something. On all the other times, editing means deleting. Little additions and lots of subtractions or deletions.
Cleaning is an art. Deleting in art. That goes for texts, articles, manuscripts, but also for closets, draws, habits, memories, and angry feelings, and sometimes toxic people.
I recently moved and had to delete a lot of things! It’s time to be mature, which has many advantages, among them, not being so sentimental with our past and promoting a tsunami wash in anything that’s excessive. There is no time to linger.
Simplifying things, contrary to what people may think, can be a long process. Even when this verb is related to affection and money, because accumulation has nothing to do with satisfaction. If we have affection and enough money to live well, with dignity, in peace, with comfort and happiness, why do we want more, and more, and more?
Too much can actually work against us, demanding us extra effort to make our wheel turn. But when we have just enough, maybe that wheel might turn on its own.
Ops, time is up! Time to publish this article. It may have some excess words, but I just want to write and seal just one more thing: that you have a great year, filled with joy, peace, prosperity, health, and wisdom! See you next time!
