My sister has this life-long friend who grew up on a farm. Raised cows, learned to drive a tractor at age 6, showed pigs at the county fair–the whole bit. She once described to us the process of delivering piglets, an ordeal my sister got to participate in. Third-grade arms deep inside the pig, little fetuses squirming to get out, blood and muck everywhere. When I saw Billy Crystal deliver a calf in City Slickers, I had some idea what it must have smelled like, thanks to my sister’s friend.
Birthing Revising my novel feels a little bit similar. I’m up to my elbows in the gory mess of my own words, and just when I think I’ve got hold of something, the walls constrict, grip my arm so I can’t move, and whatever I thought I had slips loose.
And everything stinks.
sigh
Samuel Snoek-Brown 