The Cobbler's children have no shoes." Recently commenting on Z's blog : "My words are like my children, I have too many of both."
I see great stories on the web, that need a little word smithing. I can see in their posts where to pare down to the essentials. I, the cobbler don't shoo (sic) my progeny.
I have always written as I think, then later worry about clarity, brevity & grammar. I want to revisit prior posts in a form easier to digest. I may lift some gems from my wife's also into a "best of" post as her writing is already pretty crisp.
My first try cut one 1550 word post into only the two following posts, one of 280 words and one of 500.
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2 comments:
The words-as-children thing is apt, as we tend to feel protective towards them. They're only words, however, a means to an end. You don't need them all (especially most adjectives, I find).
Stephen King's book "On Writing" has a kind-of-rule that the second draft of anything should be the first draft minus 10%. Of course, that all assumes you're not hitting "Publish" as soon as you get to the end of your first draft - a habit I still work hard to break.
This was lovely to readd
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