Friday Fricassee

Guess what these tiny Christmas trees are made of?  Ripped-up-pages-of-old-paperbacks!  Wonderful way to recycle, yes?

Beyond that, though, is this imagery of book-shredding that reminds me of revisions, and how good it would feel if the process were a bit more tactile.  I mean, it's effortless to delete a word or a sentence or a paragraph or an entire bleeding chapter.  But wouldn't it feel tremendous to be able to feel it a bit more?  To actually take those words and mangle them with your hands?  To resolutely shove them down a garbage chute?

There's something to be said for those melodramatic movie scenes of writers crumpling sheets of paper in a fit of pique and tossing them into the nearest hearth.

Though, truth be told, I don't feel piqued when I delete things during revisions--I feel EMPOWERED.  I feel LIGHTER.  In fact I feel like I'VE LOST FIVE POUNDS AND MY JEANS AREN'T TOO TIGHT ANYMORE.  All those excess words that had to go away to allow the story to shine!  All that cumbersome fluff, those extraneous scenes--au revoir, all!

(Oh, dear.  "Cumbersome fluff"made me think of Benedict Cumberbatch.  How will I get myself back on track?)

As if it's not obvious, I've just completed a round of revisions that left my story 4 chapters shorter and close to 6000 words lighter.  All along, I knew the story needed trimming, tightening, finessing.  I knew, but I couldn't see.  And then Danielle Burby pretty much nailed it (she's good at that), and off I went with a clear vision on exactly what I needed to do.

Except, I'm now sort of wishing that I had actual pages I could rip up and turn into tiny Christmas trees.  It would help me feel like all the hours that went into the now-deleted pages were redeemable.

(This is the part where I remind you that every minute spent writing a book is worth it--even when you end up deleting stuff.  It's all part of the process.  It all COUNTS.)

So don't be afraid to say good-bye to the parts of your story that aren't doing it any favors.  If it's an entire chapter, you'll probably want to save it "just in case" (and this is one of the reasons why Scrivener is awesome, because you can just throw the chapter in the trash, but Scrivener will save it there indefinitely, so you will always find it later if you need to), but if you're just rewriting dialogue or getting rid of a redundant paragraph, THROW IT OUT AND DON'T LOOK BACK.  Maybe even toss an evil laugh its way as it goes.

Okay.  Go delete something.  Or go rip up a paperback and make me a tiny tree.  And have a marvelous weekend!