Small Stones (25)

Morning creeps into me,
the hum and click of the heating pipes,
the hiss of the shower.
I drift in and out of sleep
happy to acknowledge the sounds
but happy to linger in the in between.

   *

Editing......can you over edit?  Yes,  sometimes I've gone so far that hardly anything of the original is there and it becomes impossible to work as a poem and I end up having to start from scratch.

I do like cutting words that don't add to anything, so I do have to be careful that I don't over do it.  I try to leave things for a while and go back to them.  With small stone poems I haven't always had a chance to edit before posting them on the Small Stones Facebook page and a couple of times I've gone back at a later stage and thought that to rearrange some words would make for a better poem.  But poems are never really finished and I can go back to them another time if I want.  I think I've got better at editing over the years but having someone else read your work can help (not family or friends because they will probably not want to say anything negative).  This is where an online group/forum or a class helps.  Feedback is very helpful because others can see where a poem isn't working and often straight away you can see it too!  However, at the end of the day whether you take advice is up to you as it's your work and not everyone's thoughts are helpful.  Within a class there is usually several points of view.  I base my final decision of the majority vote.  If several people pick up on the same thing then  it's worth taking notice.