Ignoring or removing line breaks python

Ignoring or removing line breaks python

I'm sorry for the noobish question, but none of the answers I've looked at
seem to fix this. I'd like to take a multi-line string like this:
myString = """a
b
c
d
e"""
And get a result that looks like or that is at least interpreted as this:
myString = "abcde"
myString.rstrip(), myString.rstrip(\n), and myString.rstrip(\r) don't seem
to change anything when I print this little "abcde" test string. Some of
the other solutions I've read involve entering the string like this:
myString = ("a"
"b"
"c")
But this solution is impractical because I'm working with very large sets
of data. I need to be able to copy a dataset and paste it into my program,
and have python remove or ignore the line breaks.
Am I entering something in wrong? Is there an elegant solution to this?
Thanks in advance for your patience.