The sock drawer rule is how I judge my writing. My writing instructor in college (who would probably laugh if I told her I was still writing, and then snort coke out her nose if I subsequently cried 'blog') didn't like my writing, and it was the one thing we had in common. Except for that we both wear glasses and probably suffer through bouts of alcohol fueled depression, followed by alcohol fueled recovery, and topped off with alcoholic alcohol nightcaps/dayquils. Quill means writer, right? If you're reading this, Teacher, please know that I hate my writing far worse than you ever could. You lose. I hope you can deal with not measuring up to me in this one regard. The student has now become the mastah! KaPOW, cheers.
But my writing instructor passed muster as a teacher, if not a friend, because I still remember all those things she said. She said that you should take whatever you write and put it in your sock drawer, and then later, much later, read it again. If you can stomach it, then start editing, cause you got it to good. I even bought a sock drawer, forsaking the space underneath my futon as a clothes organizer henceforth and forever.
She didn't say what to do if the writing merely smelled of fabric softener after its month-long exile.
I'm guessing you should just throw it away and hope you don't remember. The nice thing about writing on napkins is that the story still has some use as a coaster long after you've realized the words act like jagged rocks bearing the weight of the rope you're using to scale Mt. Esteem. Paper just gets tossed. As Rosie Thomas says in her song Farewell, farewell.
I was writing to a friend about this, a friend whom I'll call 'Gadzooks.' Gadzooks, I worked on that birthday piece for two weeks, and no matter how many socks I piled on top of that helluvabitch, I couldn't get it to good. Gatt dmnit . If I could just commit to sentimentality and go with it, instead of flirting around the edges and turning away right when the hot cowboy stares back at me, I'd be fine. Gadzooks tried to tell me this on Saturday night, and even though I tried to take notes on my iPaq and MARBLE MEMO, I couldn't follow through. But by this time it was Sunday morning, and all I could think about was how every bull elk has 20 cows all to his own. I told Gadzooks that it could be that these were most likely suicide bomber reincarnates. Or do they get 99 virgins? Maybe it's measured in weight. 20 elk heifers must be about the same as 99 al-concubines.
The new sock drawer rule is how I judge my weblog posts. I develop lines. Single lines, sometimes even just simple phrases. I save them in OpenOffice documents in an electronic file called Sock Drawer. I revisit these pages and try to make sense of it all. I suppose I should probably type those sentences in bold, to remind myself of where all this jagged writing got its primordial spark. I hate wanting to write. Words are deflator mice.