Maybe don’t kill your darlings?
The phrase “kill your darlings” is a lifelong foe. I’ve never quite understood it, prevalent as the idea can be. I take the injunction to mean I should get rid of the best parts of what I’m working on: the lines I feel especially alive while rereading, the metaphors so bewitching it seems possible I, too, along with the language, might be transfigured.
I always took this phrase as “don’t be afraid to edit out something that you love.”
You sacrifice a passage that you love for the betterment of the whole piece.
But I resist this too.
For even if I don’t like something here or there, someone else might.
In fact, I often turn discarded ideas into short blog posts and then press on with something else.
Done and done.