Sentence:  Later I was entrusted with writing the letters to the editor, because nobody else ever wrote to our paper. The editor, Eric Lewis, had a slash and burn style of editing that left its mark on me forever. Most of my stories ended up on the <WSD>spike</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A long nail for storing papers and, by extension, the metaphorical place where rejected newspaper articles are sent.