On August 6, I started noting how many words I pruned each day from the second draft of my novel,
Leave Society, pruning on the screen and on paper in the morning and just on paper at night.
August 6: 67 words
August 7: 99 words
August 8: 62 words
August 9: 234 words
August 10: 244 words
Here is most of what I pruned on August 9 and 10, from my four-part novel's third part, which is called Year of Mountains:
-"Yes,” said Li. “Japan’s government has been promoting forest-bathing since 1982.”
-began playing in the station, priming the train’s arrival.
-and steeped green tea
-more movement and sunlight
-Sometimes he wanted to get totally away, disappear for years.
-which sometimes made him feel like he had to assuage both himself and his mom, compounding both their worries
-an example of when going to a hospital had helped
-as she always did when Li lifted her to something
-collected leaves from inch plants, which regulated blood sugar, and aluminum plants, whose aesthetic he liked, then
-Li’s dad said he’d dreamed they’d lost Dudu. He’d put up flyers that said two kilograms, white, poodle, and 0.1 concentration, a detail from his equations.
-through armed invasion and land seizure
-somewhat pessimistically, Li felt
-as he’d planned to ask for months.
-“Du must have thought we abandoned her and that Auntie saved her,” said Li’s mom. “I believe this is why she loves Auntie so much.”
-Li said he wanted to save “embarrassed” for its original meaning.
-though he knew it could return stronger
-Her ancestors all ate lamb.
-Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.
-“If I eat it all the time, then definitely…eating it rarely, how could anything happen?”
-lying on his back in his room, Li deep-breathed for two minutes, then held his breath to a timer. After around a minute, he had a YG. When he returned, he somehow believed he was in 4K in 2012. Clustering dread dissolved to relieved gratitude as he realized he was in Taiwan in 2017.
-with a small toothbrush
-with a wet nub of tissue paper
-"Were they two females and one male?" said Li.
-"We don't know what they were," said Li’s mom.
-He noticed someone wearing a shirt that said “lifk is short” and he and his parents laughed, wondering if “lifk” was a typo of “life.”
-searched “lifk,” which didn’t seem to be a word, and
-the supposed founder of Daoism
-Li said he’d “at least look at everything in there.”
-which was sometimes translated as “the way”
-They entered a plaza where young males were seated cross-legged in groups, looking at phones. Li’s dad asked one of them what he was waiting for. He said an anime convention.
-(once airborne he had to wait as he floated down)
-Anions could form indoors via plants, air ionizing machines, crystal salt lamps, and running water, he’d read.
Some of those I might re-insert, because I'm going through each part twice on this edit—pruning and then, while discerning the effects of my prunes and reviewing what I've pruned, pruning again.