Over-egging is perhaps not the best choice of expression for a vegan to use, but it does come to mind when I’m writing rather than baking. I suppose the phrase ‘less is more’ is also appropriate when writing a poem or story – it can be spoilt by saying too much, using too many adjectives, being too wordy generally. A story can ramble around with sentences that don’t really move things on – don’t give us more insight into the characters.
How do we know when to stop? One thing I discovered many years ago was that when drafting and redrafting poetry, it’s important to keep all the different versions as sometimes the first is the best. However, very often we look at poems that have been published and see things that we would like to cut or change in some way. Yes, we can say that a poem is never finished – it can be work in progress indefinitely and appear and re-appear in a number of versions. But – we do have to stop at some point and there is always that danger of making things worse.
Life sometimes teaches us that less can be better than more. We can try too hard and achieve less. We can worry too much about the things we can’t change.
Life's a Beach 