A Call for Lost Paragraphs

An interesting new project from Jill Talbot:

I am currently seeking your “darlings,” those paragraphs that have been excised from published or forthcoming works (specifically essays, stories, memoirs, or novels) for a book-length project addressing fragmentation and omission via editing in writing.

Please send your abandoned, deleted, saved-in-another-document paragraphs to the e-mail listed on my contact page.  In addition, please provide a sentence (or two) explaining why the paragraph was eliminated.  I look forward to reading your lost paragraphs.

Deadline:  February 1, 2013

EX:

to:  talbot dot jill

from:  green dot light

Subject:  Lost Paragraph

Original Source:  ”Babylon Revisited,” Saturday Evening Post, February 21, 1931

Paragraph:  Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain.  It was late afternoon and the streets were in movement; the bistros gleamed.  At the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines he took a taxi. The Place de la Concorde moved by in pink majesty; they crossed the logical Seine, and Charlie felt the sudden provincial quality of the Left Bank.

Reason for omission:  I had written almost the same description of Dick Diver in Tender is the Night and wished to avoid the oversight.