I’ve heard from other bloggers who claim their ideas come easily and the words flow like water. They maintain that the finished work requires only a quick read-through, with little or no editing before they post. Most are lying, but you can usually tell the ones who aren’t. (There riting is natrally so good then  rest of us,).

Well, my ideas come easily (as a dog’s morning dump after eating dental floss from the bathroom trash the night before) and my words flow like water, too. (Lapped from a stagnant pond, filtered through overworked kidneys and expelled through the urethra). Once I’m on to something, I’ll drop more matter than a Bangladeshi in a cholera ward, but then I find I must read through and edit with Edward Scissorhands-like intensity, lopping off entire sentences and even paragraphs until I am ready to serve up the steam, fly-ridden pile my twelve readers are used to being served. This process takes several hours over a couple of days. (Sad, I know).

I’m no great writer – one need only read to know it. Nonetheless, I find validation in the process; through exhaustive research (ugh; is there any other kind?), I’ve discovered that  many of history’s greatest adopted a similar approach before their works reached the eyes and ears of the world. By way of example, I offer you ten of the most famous lines of literature, poetry and speech in their original, unedited form:

Courtesy Google Images

1) Float like a puffy cloud butterfly, sting like a carpet burn boo-boo with hydrogen peroxide poured on it bee – Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)

2) The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and I have to pee really bad but I have promises to keep, and why don’t girls like me – I’m such a creep miles to go before I sleep – Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

3) Call me Ishmael; both my friends do and I think it sounds cool  – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Hey, sweetheart; how ’bout a push? – Google Images

4) The only thing we have to fear are cockroaches and hobos who mutter to themselves is fear itself – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address

5) It was the best of times, It was the worst of times, and there were some mediocre times as well; the latter likely do not warrant further mention, but since I am paid by the word , may find inclusion nonetheless – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

6) A penny saved can be later used as a shim to stabilize a wobbly chair is a penny earned – Benjamin Franklin

7) You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but now I’m just confused you cannot fool all the people all the time – Abraham Lincoln

8) It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, will most certainly lose it once wed must be in want of a wife – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

9) Ow! What the frick, Brutus!? That really hurt! Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

10) People who live in glass houses should exercise regularly so as not to offend those who live outside whenever they bathe shouldn’t throw stones – Chinese Proverb

As history shows us, a little editing can go a long way.