Hiking blog post update #4

I keep spoiling my Bridge to Nowhere blog post with these images, but they are SO DAMN GOOD. I am a good photog, yo.

I finished the first draft of my article. I call it an article like it’s a long substantial thing, but it really isn’t. I get the feeling that it’s going to be pretty short by the time I publish it.

I had to cut out a huge section of the draft today. I wanted to relate The Bridge to Nowhere, a failed Los Angeles construction project, to the video game, “L.A. Noire,” which also had a construction project as the backdrop for the game’s seedy and corrupt backstory. I wrote a whole paragraph about the game and I was looking forward to tying two of my interests — fiction and video games — to my love of hiking.

But I did a little research and found that the game wasn’t as relevant to my hike as I had remembered. I didn’t feel like writing even more to justify trying to keep this game in the blog, so I deleted hundreds of words.

You gotta learn to kill your darlings when it comes to writing. I’ve always been told this. This is one of the few times I have had to practice it. Part of me thinks it’s a waste of time, but I know it’s for the best. And that knowledge makes me feel good about my process.

So, this officially puts me in the editing/2nd draft phase of my process. I’m stoked!

Hopefully, I won’t take too long with it. I really do want to make that Friday deadline. I think two days is a reasonable amount of time to edit down my work.

I don’t want to go on forever refining my writing. As much as I am enjoying the process, I also want to be done with it. I had really wanted to publish a half-baked first draft last Sunday. I promised myself that if I waited, and gave myself the time to write, it would have been worth the delay. It’s time that I reward that patience.

So far so good! I am on track! I’ll have another update tomorrow.