A piece that has gone cold is different from a piece that was abandoned. An abandoned piece was given up on — the writer decided, consciously or by default, that the piece was not worth finishing. A piece that has gone cold was set aside with the intention of returning, but has not been returned to, and has accumulated the particular difficulty that comes with distance from work that was once alive and is no longer.

Every writer who works across multiple pieces has pieces that have gone cold. The draft that was started and interrupted by other work. The piece that was nearly finished but stalled at the last section. The essay that had a strong argument but lost its energy somewhere in the middle and was set aside to be fixed later. Later did not come, and now the piece sits in the drafts folder, neither abandoned nor in progress, getting colder.

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