You don’t always....

[Paul Whybrow]

You don’t always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they’d be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it’s the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.)

Diana Athill

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Smug glee- always suspect. The magic trick is timely self-diagnosis.