The Lines I Didn’t Publish No.7
Behind the scenes of “A Folking Good Time,” getting out of your writing’s way, and knowing when to end it.
I had a lot of fun writing A Folking Good Time.
Generally, when I sit down to write an essay, I move through the writer’s grief cycle: denial, anger, bargaining, procrastination, and getting into the snacks real heavy.
This latest essay wasn’t entirely different, but eventually there was real joy in latching onto this weekend snapshot and pushing it from the internal to the external—a home birth, if you will.
I haven’t written a humour essay anchored to one event in a while. Initially, I didn’t think there was much to gnaw: we went to a folk festival, had low expectations, and somehow captured that once-in-a-summer magic.
I assumed I’d use the festival weekend as an anecdote, then transition into something more reflective. As I’ve mentioned before, I rarely start writing with a plan. I have an idea or a story I’ve been ruminating on, and then I see where it goes.
I tend to think that a story I’d gab about on the phone over isn’t big enough for print (or post). But increasingly, I think this is old, limited thinking.
Some of my favourite writers, like David Sedaris, can feather out a single scene, build character, and artfully weave humour and life inside something as mundane as an ass-bleaching waiting room (fear not, he never wrote this).
For A Folking Good Time, I found myself staying in the scene for the fun of it. As a result, a more blown-out, cinematic approach unfolded. I got to include the extra details, dialogue, and narration that I often skip in favour of threading more observations together.
I want to do more of this kind of lived-in, deeply burrowed writing.
But without further ado, here’s what I cut and why, along with some of the method behind the editor’s madness (me).
