Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Revisions Cave beckons...

I've been most undisciplined this last week or so, distracted by thoughts of querying. So, I shall retire to the Revisions Cave (tm) until I dutifully complete the last of the revisions resulting from the oh-so-fabulous crit from Karen .

Before I do, a quick note on a bit of writing advice I finally saw in action today: Kill your darlings.

I first read this advice on Diana Peterfreund's blog. She explains it far better that I ever could so you should just click here to read her original post. But the gist of it can be boiled down to this quote from the post: If you love something, but it doesn’t work, take it out. Love the book, not the scene. When I first read that post, I was very early into writing my first project. Writing was so new! So shiny! As far as I knew, I hadn't made any mistakes yet! Oh, those were the days... ;) I thought, "No problem. Kill your darlings. This won't be a problem for me! I won't attach myself to any text I write! I'm Serious about getting published and I'm willing to Do What It Takes so I'll cut what needs cutting, without any regrets!"

Right.

It's taken me three days to work up the nerve to cut a paragraph--a darling--from the WIP. Three. Freaking. Days.

The para's gone now--phew!--and it really did need to go (thanks Karen!). But damn, it hurt. ;)

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