I'm learning (but failing) to operate on my literary babies-- to bravely and brutally cut into them and trim away the fat and clean up the infected areas-- by swiftly pressing the 'delete' button on my keyboard. (It used to be 'backspace', when I was using a Toshiba laptop, and it allowed me to imagine that I was going backwards in time and starting over. My new MacBook is less patient with me. Each time I stare down at the keyboard it reminds me to get to the heart of the matter.)