Recycling Your Writing

You’ve written a masterpiece. You can feel it in your fingertips as you magically type the last word. Unfortunately, no one else around you feels the same about your written jewel. Rejection letters flood in, and even your parents politely (and maybe even sympathetically) say that what you’ve written is “nice”.

It’s hard to let go of something you’ve written—especially if you’ve poured a lot of emotion and heart into it. But while emotion is necessary for writing, emotion can also cloud your message and confuse your readers, thus resulting in an unpublished piece. So how do you know when to let go of something you’ve written?

You don’t let it go.

You recycle it.

Recycling means editing, cutting, deleting, and lots of other words that are rather unpleasant. Use the “Recycle” acronym to help keep you focused while looking at your beloved masterpiece with a more critical eye...

R- Reuse what you can. Is there sentence with great descriptive power? Use it somewhere else! Is there a plot or theme that could be reused in a different article? Save it!

E- Energize your words. After you’ve taken all that you can reuse out of your manuscript, give it new life! Make the reusable parts into a creation of their own… In other words, start over with the gems you’ve collected from your original manuscript.

C- Control the urge to look back. Don’t lose focus and start trying to re-write the original manuscript. Trust me, if everyone dislikes it, there’s a reason. J

Y- Yield to creativity. Think outside the original boundaries of your first manuscript and dare yourself to come up with something more meaningful. If you’re having a hard time, ask friends, family, or other writers for ideas. J

L- Let go! If all other recycling measures fail, then it is really time to hit the “delete” button and send your manuscript far far away where no one will ever find it.

E- Enjoy your writing! Just because you may have written something that didn’t turn out the way you expected, doesn’t provide you reason to be discouraged! We all have hidden manuscripts safely tucked away in the trash. You’re a writer if you keep going and tackle that next writing project (hopefully with more success!).

Bio: Lydia Rule is an author, editor, and freelance writer. And yes, her trash can has seen many articles which she refuses to claim as her own.