File Under Short Stories by Mary Dutta

Last weekend I took a trip to the local zoo, but not to visit the animals. I went to take advantage of one of my county’s periodic paper-shredding events.

After snaking around the parking lot in a long line, I handed over multiple years’ worth of tax returns, financial statements, and other documents containing personal information. The mobile shredders did their thing, and I drove home lighter both in paper and in mind.

I feel confident that in today’s world of paperless statements, online bill paying, and account histories available with a single click of a mouse, the odds of my accumulating more such paper clutter are very slim. Digital clutter, though, is another story.

I have many files from my short story writing. Many, many files.

There are published stories in multiple versions, including numerous drafts and the final form I submitted for possible publication. Then there’s the revision incorporating the editor’s feedback that became the published version. Sometimes there’s yet another copy with identifying data redacted for contest submissions.

Of course, I also have completed stories that have not (yet) been published. Some are things I haven’t sent out for consideration. Others are stories that were rejected from one publication and that I plan to resubmit elsewhere. In those cases, there might be the original iteration of the story and then a version that I think is improved, or that I have tweaked to fit a different anthology call.

There are plenty of unfinished works as well. Stories that started strong but then don’t quite work. Things I realized I wouldn’t finish to meet a deadline and left incomplete. Some files consist of only a single sentence, a story idea that may one day come to fruition. Others contain notes for works that are a little further along in their development.

It used to be that my personal computer storage was limited to what a hard drive, floppy disc, CD, or flash drive could hold. But with cloud storage that capacity is now virtually unlimited. That may mean I don’t make it back to the zoo any time soon, but then I’ll probably be too busy writing to go.

 What files have you held onto, and are you planning to let them go?