I'm slowly learning that ideas, the ones that are malformed at least, must die.
William Faulkner once said, "Kill your darlings."
What he meant by that is that if your story is not up to it, whether it be a lack of character, theme or passion to write it, then you must get rid of it, my friend.
I'm in the midst of editing my short story collection which was over 60,000 words. After typing in the corrections for the last week and a half, half of the manuscript is finished.
And I've been able to trim 1,642 useless words. I can honestly say that those words were just fat. They needed to go. But, not only did I play snip-snip with my manuscript but I also decided that of the twenty stories which have been collected, one of them had to go.
It was a three paged story called A Rusty Decision. It was based off of a dream I had but that dream wasn't able to support a plot. I guess it was just me experimenting. Anyway, that story is now gone. And yet, I don't feel the need to replace it with anything. So, if this collection is one story light, then that's okay with me.
The important thing is that I'm on the right track, making progress and am amazed at some of the helpful/insightful edits that a friend of mine has made.
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