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EDITING THIS WHOLE BOOK
Sunday Aug. 23, 2015
Everyone’s life moments, real page-turners, gripping bulls by horns, riding high, flying fast, milestones and cliff-drops, emotions confront sudden stops, plans take sharp turns.
Greatest expectations fall into disappointment canyons.
Trashed, smashed, plugged-in somewhere else – editing is easy, like surgery, this worn-out spatula for my scalpel, whittling life’s fir tree down to toothpicks, dismembered. Zip-locked packages of conciseness. Unnecessary parts, every twig, all that sap, every knothole – pulled out, leaving valued stickiness behind. Shredding sentences that don’t feel, purging paragraphs which don’t fit, do I whittle people and relationships from these never ending stories?
Lacking structure.
Broken into sections.
Seeing clearly only when I’m reading – back to front.
No children’s book, we’ve matured, ripened, novel length. Joy comes factory installed, in every girl and boy, illustrated, every childhood freedom moment, because adult life holds no place for baby looks.
Serial short storied lives, packaged away, for retelling sometimes on special occasions but otherwise our upper lip stiffly held, never quivering, grinding away – what is smart, what is reasonable, what is sound, what is safe, what is normal?
Cover to cover, dog-eared thumb-worn pages without numbers. Dust jacket – tattered, stained. Spine intact, but often little else resembles beginnings. Editing, purging inconveniences, everything that doesn’t matter must go, leaving little pieces that don’t fit.
Turning pages, finishing chapters, moving on. Next, next, next. Flipping back, reviewing previous ones nostalgically recalling best times, happy times. Who wants to relive their troubled times?
Revisiting turmoil serves little purpose. I prefer flipping forward to now, to what is next, what might be – aching for opportunity, not wanting run out of life before I run out of pages.
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 7C/45F, warming up today – calm and clear magnificent perfect blue, streets are Sunday-quiet and my sore foot is so no-sore I feel like dancing a jig. Gusta is still at the kennel getting groomed and pampered …
Reader feedback:
WHERE BEST IN US BEGINS
Still enjoying your musings! Thanks Mark for your writings. I enjoy reading daily. Cheers, DL, Invermere, BC
Thank-you Mark...that was lovely and thought provoking..., SF, Lethbridge, AB
Poignant!, Best, MK, Calgary, AB
So, were you, as her father, flattered by the comments? Imagine you having such a slick chick on your arm!! All things are possible, Mark. LOL, BR, Calgary, AB
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