KILLING MY DARLINGS

Last week, I turned in the revision of my next YA. This was by far the most extensive rewrite I've ever done. I mentioned it before at the blog, but what started out being a 75K-word manuscript became, in the course of about two days after receiving my editorial letter, a 30K-word manuscript.

I've learned more about writing in the past year than any other year on record (thank you, bloggers). And more than I've been leaning on the power of the pen lately, I've been relying on the almighty scissors. I did turn in a 62K-word manuscript, but this rewrite would have been much different had I been hesitant to cut so much of the original draft from the get-go.

...It looks as though I've finally embraced the old killing your darlings lesson. Man, that was a hard one to get through my skull...