Stanzas on Editing a Novel

Editing the same piece over and over again

is like trying to break through a brick wall using your head.*

“I spent the morning putting in a comma

and the afternoon removing it.” ― Gustave Flaubert

Misery is still finding typos

in a passage you’ve already edited fifteen times.

To “that” or not to “that,”

that is the question.

  *No wonder Bertrand Russell said that writing the Principia Mathematica “had actually damaged his brain.”