Flashes of Panic

It’s always better to know what you’re writing going in, I think. New England Runner didn’t really give me any guidelines for an Osaka story, so I threw every story I hadn’t told already (and I few I had) into one big, sprawling narrative and sent it in, knowing it was too long but figuring cutting was better than stretching.

Some days later came the apologetic reply: great stuff, but it needs cutting all right. To about a quarter of its original size.

I have it at a bit more than a third, right now, but I still need to cut another third of what remains. I’m toying with the idea of removing every third word and seeing if it still makes sense.

Technorati Tags: new england runner, reporting, running, troubleshooting, writing