It’s Writing Pancake Day!

Today is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. It’s a day of celebration before the religious season of Lent begins. Some traditions also call today Pancake Day because people would make pancakes covered in all the sweet treats from the pantry before getting rid of them for Lent.

Since today is an odd mixture of celebrating and throwing things out, it got me thinking about the writing equivalent. There’s the adage to kill your darlings — throw out the things you worked hard on that may detract from your overall story. While we often love parts of our writing, sometimes we need to let them go, like Rose dropping Jack into the Atlantic.

Regardless of what you’re writing right now, take today to kill a few of your darlings. They might be characters, plot lines, sentence structure, overused words — a darling can be anything you can get rid of to make your writing better. But, since today is also about celebrating, let’s celebrate these things you’re letting go of!

Find a way to honor the time, work, and creativity involved with your darlings. Whether you kill them completely or pull them for future ideas, celebrate the time you invested into these darlings.

What are you celebrating today? Are you killing these darlings off completely, or might they return in the future? Hit reply and let me know. I try to respond to every email I receive and may use some of your comments for a future newsletter!

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