An author's brain is constantly spouting ideas. Every moment in the waking world is an opportunity to absorb concepts and incidences from life. These images, sounds, and smells get swirled up and mixed around in the human brain and from there produce a near endless stream of what ifs.
"If the only tool you have is a hammer all problems look like nails."
could also be said
"If you are an author all ideas look like plot devices."
Many times this results in an author having a story that looks more like a bramble tangle than a tree at the end of the first edit. Some branches can be carefully trimmed and eased into the flow of the main story but some must be ruthlessly cut out. However it is madness to throw them away. In the age of cut and paste it is the easiest thing to take a fragment of the story that didn't quite make the cut and save it away in a file for a rainy day.
"Dying Embers" has several files like that. Chapters, paragraphs, or even single thoughts not yet in sentence form fill the white space in bland documents. Maybe someday readers will get to see them. Maybe not.
"If the only tool you have is a hammer all problems look like nails."
could also be said
"If you are an author all ideas look like plot devices."
Many times this results in an author having a story that looks more like a bramble tangle than a tree at the end of the first edit. Some branches can be carefully trimmed and eased into the flow of the main story but some must be ruthlessly cut out. However it is madness to throw them away. In the age of cut and paste it is the easiest thing to take a fragment of the story that didn't quite make the cut and save it away in a file for a rainy day.
"Dying Embers" has several files like that. Chapters, paragraphs, or even single thoughts not yet in sentence form fill the white space in bland documents. Maybe someday readers will get to see them. Maybe not.
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