🔖📝 I love Austin Kleon’s advice to relocate your darlings. I have a file for every project with the word “Cut” in the filename and anything I don’t use goes there in case I want it later.

@kimberlyhirsh I do the same thing: one file per project. Mine are called “Scraps”. 📑

@kimberlyhirsh @cheri I wonder if this also applies to non-fiction writing, like manuals or news articles? I suspect it doesn't, because that kind of writing is less visceral, and more concrete and matter-of-fact. It still is somewhat creative, as not to bore or confuse your audience.

@Cheri I looked at my old docs from early in my doc program and I called the file "Excised" back then.

@renevanbelzen Most of my writing is non-fiction, academic writing. There's always the possibility that you began by including something that ended up being off-target for the piece. Those are the things I save, because maybe they'll belong elsewhere in the same piece or be the beginning of something wholly new later.

@kimberlyhirsh Stephen King is a big "kill your darlings" person, but also advises writers to save everything. If I remember rightly, he said that he's sometimes returned to a 'failed' piece of writing years later, and it's turned into a successful novel.