Just this morning, I was asked what the best advice is that I could give to aspiring authors. The answer is more obvious than you’d think and has been phrased in many ways.

Kill your darlings.

In short, it means to stop being afraid of that delete key and know when to press it. When in doubt, delete, delete, delete.

My word count for yesterday was 2,600 words and today I’ve written another 800 so far. But you can’t tell by my manuscript. I’ve deleted quite a bit. I saw what was wrong and rather than wait for a big mess to clean up at the end, I hacked my darlings to itty bitty bits and started anew in several areas, leaving me with a total of 13,000 words for Ninth Grade Sucks. Now, don’t get me wrong–I almost never revise as I write something. But if I feel the story heading toward doom, I’m apt to yank its chain a bit. Don’t let the story get away from you too much or you might end up at the bottom of a pit wondering, “How on earth did I get here and how the heck am I going to get out of it?”

So sharpen your sickles, my minions. And hack away at your darlings until all that remains is a thing of beauty.

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