As I continue with my curating phase of writing, I am growing in intentional living. In my writing practice, I am allowing for the time I spend today to free up my tomorrow and lighten the load I carry forward. I am months in on the process of identifying all the writing that I have. Then, like uncluttering a junk drawer, I face each piece and discard the work that really has no remaining use or value in storing.

It was William Faulkner who said, “In writing, you must kill your darlings.” I had spent time carefully considering thoughts and scribing them to sentences, paragraphs, poetry, and lyrics. And saved it, saved it, and saved it. Some of it is garbage. Oh, I enjoyed writing and dating the entries and this period of looking back. But, I don’t need to retain evidence of all these attempts. I can move on from the heft of keeping it all!

An author friend of mine recently visited our book club as a special guest a few months ago to discuss her YA novel. I asked her about her darlings that got killed during the editing process. She said that she can easily discard them after many years of practice. She did confess to keeping a “graveyard” document for some great phrases or character gems.

About ten years ago, I developed the habit of writing on legal pads. It is easy on the eyes. I use yellow sheets for writing and pink ones for lists. The pen slides easily over the faintly-lined surface. Most importantly, it is the best paper weight for crumpling. It is satisfying to grasp the page and crush it between your palms, then toss them toward the circular bin rather than filing it or storing it. I recommend legal pads for brainstorming because much of what is produced during a session is rubbish. For the ideas worth keeping, simply copy them down in a more sturdy medium such as composition notebook, word doc, or bound journal.

It is freeing to declutter the years of work, and better still is the feeling of not saving as much to begin with by making decisions about what ideas have wings and what ideas are destined for the circular bin. The latter can be discarded immediately rather than stacked to review later. Creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets, eventually being able to do more work with less effort. If an idea is really that good, it will come back around more fully formed without your scrap of paper. Let it go.

For the pieces saved from the bin, I have an executive-level organized file system for the electronic works in progress, and my drafts are penned in beautifully bound and dated journals. I keep some of these in a basket on my desk and the rest are stacked in paper boxes lining my book shelf, always there like a good friend.