The question becomes one of how much you can cut out of a thing and still have it be that thing. Or in a perfect world, a better version of that thing. What is needed, what isn't? Signal or noise, wheat or chaff.
So you keep cutting, and the thing may get worse before it gets better, but you trust that you'll end up with what you want. Sometimes you get lucky and it actually works that way.
Other times you end up with a mess. Okay, then. Make something else out of that mess. In which case it doesn't become a better version of the thing, but rather a different thing altogether. Hopefully a better thing than what you originally had.
If not? Well, try again. Keep trying. Add, subtract, change. Probably swear a lot. If you're like me, anyway, maybe shake your fist at the world. That always helps. Make a mean face, show the world who's boss, or at least who you like to believe the boss is.
Get it out of your system, get back to work. Read a book. Play with your dog. Go for a walk. Do stuff. There's always stuff to do.
* * *
Speaking of books, I'm reading a travel memoir written by a woman who has chosen to give herself the most unsympathetic narrative voice imaginable. She whines about everything: the eight whole hours it took her to research something, the coffee she drinks, the food she eats, her less boring companion who drives her crazy by not being a complete stick in the mud.
It reads like parody in parts, but she's dead serious, which makes it even more amusing. I have a feeling the companion will not survive the trip, and we'll be stuck with the narrator by herself.
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