I clicked on a link to the Dr. Oz weight loss program recently hoping to find inspiration about how to lose unwanted pounds of paper; those pages and pages of first, second, third  …two hundredth drafts of book chapters, essays, lectures – anything that can be written down and rewritten – and saved. These are not stored on a hard or a flash drive anywhere because – heaven forbid – they could be lost. An astroid could hit the earth and destroy everything that is not written in stone on paper. I know this is an inherited disorder. I’m descended from a long line of paper-savers. My mother and grandmother saved every letter, green stamp and receipt for purchases. Receipts I can understand; anyone can be audited by the IRS and you’d better have proof of purchase for that lampshade bought back in 1941. These old drafts of articles, poems and essays are like bicycles; I might need them for parts. I revere these yellowed pages as if they are ancient Schwinns or Peugeots. They just don’t make them like that anymore. What if I can’t write like that anymore? Do I really love every word I’ve ever written this much? When Hemingway or Faulkner or whoever it was said that we must “kill our darlings” and ruthlessly prune our writing, even of our favorite parts, he didn’t say that we also must dispose of the bodies. Like those delightful ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace, we can cart them down to the basement and stack them in the canal. There are artists among us who have […]