I’m growning a loaf of bread in my freezer. It consists entirely of those last single slices in the bread bag - the crusty, slightly curved ones that might be teetering on stale, but are too good to throw out.

I live in an apartment building, so feeding the pigeons is frowned on. Nor am I the kind of person who makes her own croutons or grates her own bread crumbs. But I did have a grandmother who raised five kids during the Depression. And who walked blocks out of her way to buy cracked eggs cheaper than whole ones. So I confess to feeling a bit virtuaous about the loaf that grows incrementally, slice by slice, week by week.

How does this relate to writing? (Not that it has to, but we are writers, and this is a publishers’ website.) Well, I guess it relates to that notion that you should never throw anything out. Sub-plots that get dropped from your novel; minor characters that you have to ask to leave your story; lovely images that just don’t fit in the finished poem. Keep them. Keep them in a three-ring binder, or a computer file or a shoebox. They’re good stuff, and their day will come.