Flying Down Blind Alleys by Josh Stallings

 Q: Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

“A wall is just a door you haven’t pushed on hard enough.” Regular advice my mother gave me. It’s true, except when the wall is made of bricks. I have the scarred knuckles to prove that some walls don’t open. 

More than once I’ve kept writing on a section that I knew wouldn’t survive to the final MS because I had a sense it would lead me to important discoveries. 

Sometimes when I get s...