Kill your darlings

I'm finding it really hard to work out a blog schedule at the moment. I have a lot I want to write and I'm dedicated to writing everyday and that's going well. What seems to be going tits up is when things get published. I don't want to write posts that go up the day I write them, I want to plan ahead. But as a lot of my posts are date specific, I'm getting myself a little confused. 

For the most part my recent posts have been about my boyfriend going away for the birth of his 3rd daughter. This is a very niche and time-sensitive subject. It would make no sense for me to post an article about how I felt about him leaving when he's already been away for nearly a week. But that means I have posts written that are too late to publish, and the lack of organisation will show. 

Right now I'm stuck staring at my computer in a way that teenage me would have fantasised about were I also staring out the window of a Starbucks. I want to get ahead with my writing incase I have a bad day and feel unable to write. That way at the very least I'll be able to continue with my goal to publish a post everyday. My lack of organisation is showing and I don't want to discard my work, but there are some posts I'm going to have to let go. 

When I was at university I had a lecturer who was, in all honesty, terrifying. In one of our first lectures she told us that no one cared what we had to say and once made a group announcement telling us that none of the pieces of course work that we submitted were very good. She was blunt, honest and sometimes upset me, but none of this was done out of spite. She wanted us to be good students and to producde good work, and it realy helped me in the long term. 

One of the things that helped me the most was her teaching us the phrase "Kill your darlings". Pretty dark when you first hear it, but I can assure you it has nothing to do with murder. What the phrase does mean is that, just because you love something that you've written or produced, doesn't mean everyone else will. 

Letting go of copy because it either doesn't work or fit within the rest of your writing can be hard. At first it is easy to see every word you type as a gift to the universe. After all, who wouldn't want to read every word you have to say? The thing is though, not everything is going to be great, and I need to remember this. It may be that it's gramatically or factually incorrect, that the tone doesn't match the brief or that it's just plain shit. Culling your work doesn't feel great but it isn't going to kill you. What it is going to do is make you a better writer. 

This post is being published on a day that I had intended to post a piece I was very proud of. It was honest and I as I wrote it I felt as if I was really getting to the depths of why I was feeling the way I did. It just doesn't fit within my blogging schedule. Don't get me wrong, I'll be able to work it around and edit it so I can publish it in the future, but right now it just deosn't fit. 

To get around this one of my priorities for the week is going to be to work on my scheduling. Writing everyday is great for me and I really enjoy it, but if I'm putting together posts that are never going to see the light of day I'm really just wasting my time. 

Stay safe on the road

Jess