Friday, July 27, 2012

Delete 10,000 Words?

Yikes!

I've been struggling with my WIP recently, and yesterday I realized the trouble began when XX happened to my character. So I brainstormed a bit. I began to imagine how the story would have unfolded if XX had not happened. Ideas began to flow freely ... just the opposite of the words I've been forcing onto paper lately. So, I backtracked to that pivotal point in my story and used the word count feature in Word. I've "forced" nearly 10,000 words since that pivotal point. That equals 33 pages of writing -- hard effort writing.

Oh. Well.

I think it's the right choice.

So, I will cut and paste those 33 pages into another document. Maybe some of it is useful, but I think most of it is not.

Even though I'll be losing a lot of hard work, I feel like a burden has been lifted. I'm excited about my story again, and can't wait to get the new words typed out.

:)

14 comments:

  1. At least you know what the problem is. That's better than being frustrated and not knowing what's wrong. Sad, but true.

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  2. Good for you. Sometimes it's painful, but it sounds like it's the right thing to do if you're excited to move on from this point.

    I'm glad you saved it into another document, though. You never know what you might want back.

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  3. Good news it must be. Forcing words is never fun. But it sounds like you're going to be making some awesome updates.

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  4. It's interesting how once you took care of that, you felt lighter and more enthusiastic.

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  5. Without knowing it, you probably learned a great deal about your story and characters from those 10,000 words. It was important exploration.

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  6. I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.





    Medical Manuscript Writing

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  7. Whew! I was worried you were going to delete those words. Like Dianne said, you might want to use some of that later.

    One of the things I love about writing is when you dare yourself to change something that seemed vital. It feels a little bit like bursting a hole in a dam... all the ideas come rushing out and the story flows a lot faster. Enjoy the ride, and good luck with your WiP!

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  8. letting go is difficult yet freeing. i deleted 2 chapters when i was trying to beef up, but now have more good stuff than before! worth it!

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  9. It's always good to paste into a new file. You never know when those words might be useful. D

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  10. Much better to cut those words and write the story you want to write than to stay on the wrong path and end up cutting the whole book! Glad the ideas are flowing now :-)

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  11. A tough decision, but definitely the right one, or so it seems to me! Good job Margo :)

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  12. Oh my gosh, that would be tough to do for me. But like you said, if you feel that good about it, it must be right. :)

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  13. I needed my Margo fix. So I thought I'd pop by and see what you've been up to. :-)

    Editing and deletion.

    Ugh on cutting chunks of words. I've done it but yah, it's hard. I comfort myself by putting it into a word doc and dropping into my dump files for the that manuscript. Comfort because there is just something that make you cringe when you think of really deleting the whole section. And you're right, most times it isn't something you keep. :-)But I need that comfort step anyway.

    Happy writing!

    Sia McKye OVER COFFEE

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  14. Ouch, I've done that more often than I care to remember, but I love the can-do voice of your blog. Have a marvelous day Margo.

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