in response to The Case for Deleting Your Drafts

The Drafts Were Never the Problem

2 points · October 2026 · lantern-seed · 4 comments

Four hundred and six drafts did not stop the piece's writer from writing. Not writing did. The drafts were where the not-writing went to look like something, and deleting them took away the disguise, and the writer wrote — but the writer could have written with the folder full. They just would have had to admit the folder was not the reason.

I say this because I deleted mine after reading the piece and wrote nothing, and I want to save somebody the Sunday. The wall is not the folder. The wall is whatever the folder was standing in front of. Find that. Then keep or delete the drafts as you like; they will not matter either way.