Originally published in LLL US Western Division’s Connections #86, November/December 1999
When my family moved into our home on the top of a ridge in north Pittsburgh, we inherited a property full of work. Tree stumps at our feet, tree limbs in our faces, rotting railroad ties, old brush piles, and overgrown wild rose thickets all begged for action. Starting with our first winter here, we began the process of clearing our land. With a variety of saws, pruners, and sturdy gloves, we cleared, cut, and cleaned.
Pruning the trunks of our spruce trees six feet up made the plants behind them visible. We wanted to be able to see into our woods. We even discovered three healthy yucca plants under the mass of sagging branches once we cleared them away.
We wanted to beautify what we already had. The tangled rhododendrons were trimmed, and we planted some of their cuttings around the property to spread their fierce magenta blooms. The rolls of rusted chicken wire and discarded pop cans were put out for the trash and recycling. Stacks of broken bricks were recycled into garden trims. We wanted all the plants and trees to be healthy, so we removed a tree that was crowding a timid birch.
To make travel easier, we shored up slippery slopes along a trail with paving stones left discarded by former owners. Now it is much easier to cut through our woods to the cemetery where I take my daily walk.
Editing your own writing has many of the same elements of clearing the land. You self-edit to make your words clearer, to make your ideas stronger. You proofread, check on spellings, and verify numbers so that facts and names are right.
The articles you see in Connections and other LLL publications have not only been edited and reviewed by editors and members of the review team. The articles were first edited and reviewed by the authors themselves. We’ll never know how many hours the authors spent self-editing “Thinking, It’s Hard Work!†and “Do the Next Thing.†The first drafts of these pieces surely looked a lot different from the versions you see printed in this issue.
Self-editing and rewriting are the sweat and tears of writing. But, like clearing land for improved views, better footing, plant health, beauty, and clear pathways, self-editing and rewriting are necessary, unseen tasks. I hope you enjoyed the fruits of all our Connections’ authors’ self-editing in this issue. And I invite you to write a first draft, then clean, cut, and trim away. Send a clean version to your ALL or Connections Editor for other Leaders to enjoy. Like our rhododendron plants that reward our labor with beautiful magenta blossoms every June, your ideas will flourish with self-editing.
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