Editing Things and Words
September 4, 2022

In the past few months I've come in contact with many things--as in 
physical, material items. My wife and I have spent hours looking at things, 
sorting things, donating things, discarding things, keeping (a very few, 
choice) things. And it's made me think about the things around me at my own 
house--what items I've been dragging around the world (for decades in some 
cases), what items I own but never use, what items I love, what items I work 
with every day, and what items I keep purely for sentimental or memorial 
reasons. Over the past few months, Anna Havron's article on decluttering as 
a sacred act[1] has helped me let go of many things. In it, she mentions 
the idea that objects want to be put to their intended use; for example, 
a chair wants to be sat in, a ladder to be climbed upon. There was a lot of 
stuff in the estate we've been dealing with and, if I admit the truth, in 
my life that had been set aside--either because they were "too nice to use" 
or because they were going to be useful "someday." None were fulfilling 
their intended purpose. So my wife and I have tried, when sorting through 
both the estate and our own possessions to ask "Is this being used for 
its intended purpose?" and "If I'm not using it, is there someone else 
who could use and enjoy this?"

Coincidentally, I'm also editing the first draft of a novel. Each word, 
sentence, paragraph and page that I've written serves (or is at least 
supposed to serve) a purpose. Each wants to be used, and used well. 
When I cut away useless bits of manuscript that aren't serving their 
purpose, I'm working my way towards a final product that wants to be 
read, and if I'm lucky, enjoyed in the process of reading.

The bits I edit out of the manuscript aren't lost, either. A perfectly 
good sentence or idea or scene might not be right for the manuscript 
I'm currently working on, but fit well somewhere else--either in 
another story or as raw material to be mined at a later date. Some other 
story or article might be able to use and enjoy the pieces I'm taking 
out of my current manuscript.

I'd never considered "Is this being used for its intended purpose?" and 
"Is there someone/somewhere else this could be used and enjoyed?" as 
descriptions of the editing process--until the last few months. I'm 
sure there are other, better ways to phrase the ideas--William Strunk's 
"Omit needless words" comes to mind for the first--but in light of 
recent events in my life, those two phrases have become significant and 
useful in ways they weren't before.

[1] https://www.annahavron.com/blog/the-souls-of-things-decluttering-and-disposal-as-sacred-acts

(c) 2022 Andrew Gudgel
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com