Sunday Snapshot

Time for the Sunday Snapshot!  Post the very last paragraph (or up to 5 lines of dialogue) that you wrote.  It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be good. It just has to be yours!

Here's mine:

Marenya was shaken from a kind of stupor by a deep, hollow rumbling from under the earth behind them.  Everyone turned to look over their shoulders. A great white column of steam rose up to join the clouds that coated the sky like ice on a frozen pond.  They waited, but nothing else happened other than that the birds flew up from the valley and wheeled south on the wind in one long, trailing mass.

Editing The Guts Out of the Story

Did you ever look at something you wrote a long time ago and think,  "Wow, that was really passionate and moving and... I killed it."

That happened to me today.  This morning I grabbed my original notebook for my novel, the one with the first handwritten scenes and the precious syllables of my language, to write in if I had some free time today.  I ended up reading one of the pivotal scenes in the heroine's story.  One of those so-called "candy scenes" that are a pleasure to write because they are so compelling, and which drive the rest of the plot.

It made me realize how much I've lost in the editing process through the desire to be "tight" and "clean."  I just edited the same scene last week for the third or fourth time. I wasn't satisfied with it, but I just moved on.  Because that's what I'm doing now: Moving on.  But now I'm thinking, "Hoooold it!  What happened here?"

Did you ever have one of those moments?  Have you gone back and resurrected the dead?