Killing Your Darlings

You may or may not know that I'm rewriting Rivener, my post-apocalyptic novella and first original, completed, long-form work! I currently have about 14k in the doc, much of which is new content expanding upon the old. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I'm excited for all the ways Rivener is gonna improve. I'm not actually changing much of the plot, but more of the structure and characterization to, hopefully, make it a stronger story.

And unfortunately, to do that, I am going to have to delete about 50% of the new words.

A huge part of my brain is having a temper tantrum about this, full out wailing and kicking at the ground and sobbing huge cartoon tears, the works. The other, rational part of my brain is saying, finally. The truth is, I kinda got stuck with Rivener 2.0. I went in a new direction, plot wise, and though it was fun to write, it didn't really serve the story as a whole.

I wrote myself into a corner with it, and then I couldn't find a way out without—to continue the metaphor—having to stomp over the freshly painted area. Which I was loath to do. Alas, I have no choice. I gotta kill my darlings, those darlings being the new words and by extension, the hours of work that went into writing them, which makes me feel like it was a whole lotta wasted time and effort. Boo. But actually, that's just a bad perspective. 

Those words weren't a waste, even though they're gonna be removed. (Strictly speaking, I'm cutting and pasting them into a new document because I may end up using those words in some way elsewhere. Never actually delete your work folks! Hoard them words! You will regret it otherwise!!!) Those words helped me figure out several things, develop my craft, and guide me to the right path to take with the story as a whole! 

And now that I've accepted what I need to do, I can hopefully get myself out of my rut and write on! Exciting!