Kill your darlings.
The phrase used by many people in many places. Most books about writing feature it, and likewise with any book on creativity. We discuss how hard it is, how you feel afterwards, and what brings you to do it. I think this discussion should happen, and often. Being able to get past your earlier work and move on with a fresh mind is not only a good thing, but essential if you want to make your best work and make it count.
So this is a good thing.
Now that the background is out-of-the-way, I would love to know how people get into the process of doing it. How do people cut things out? How do they decide to do it? When do they decide to do it? I am often lost on these questions. In my experience, I haven’t heard anyone really discuss the process of killing darlings, just that it is a good thing to do. Do people pick out a day to get it done? Are groups based around this idea? Do people feel safe letting people know the projects they are working on just to have them say that they need to go away?
These are tough questions because I don’t know of a class for that. I think it would be a fun experiment to try it out though. I’m writing this because I find a lot of it difficult. To sit there and label everything doesn’t ever feel good, because we always find out we are either doing way to much and we have to let people down, or way to little and we should have energy to spare. Honesty hurts, and that’s why I think a process makes even more sense. So yes, kill your darlings, but as you do, write your process of doing so. If you are reading this and do have one – I would love to talk to you. Send it over to @TheHonorableAT on twitter and lets talk it through.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 