Learning in Public: Taking Out the Trash?

One (possibly valid) complaint made by proponents of traditional publishing about the glut of independently published books is that it appears some folks are using independent publishing for on the job training. I know my first mystery wasn’t the quality I dream of writing your someday.

Writers hate wasting words. Each syllable is like a miniature birth. Despite the validity of Quiller-Couch’s advice, we hate to murder our darlings.

No chef wants to waste food. Ah, but cooking always involves waste: egg shells, apple cores, melon rinds, coffee grounds.

Construction produces waste: sawdust, cut off ends, scraps of this and that.

Art is messy. Some of the bits get thrown away because they’re trash. At the other end of the spectrum is the finely honed highly polished work of art.

Not every meal is five star cuisine. Not every construction project is the Taj Mahal. Sometimes you’re banging together some bookcases. Sometimes you’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

In my daily writing practice I’ve produced some stream of consciousness nonsense which rightly will never see the light of day. But I’ve produced some short stories which, though not brilliant, don’t deserve a shallow grave in the yard.

Now that I’ve realized that some practice makes eggshells and some practice makes a PBJ, I feel I can safely ignore the eggshells and just as safely share a PBJ with those I trust.

That would be you.

I’ll be posting some of those stories at my personal blog. They’re not gourmet dining, but if you have a few minutes for a PBJ of the mind, pop by and give them a read.