Murder Your Darlings? Fuck It, I'll Put 'Em in a Jar and Suffocate an Entire Epic World of 'Em!

It really hurts, it's a sad sad day, when one realizes all 400 fucking pages of one's novel manuscript are basically worthless.  This proves especially true when it is said novel about which one originally based his online writing persona; this is before one realized he'd be better off without a fake and pretentious persona and stuck to the simpler task of being oneself. 

So, yeah, I have this great idea for this epic fantasy and I have many notebooks filled with scribblings of characters, and creatures, and concepts, and maps, and quotes, and all manner of other crazy things.  I enjoyed so much the world creating process.  Then, I came up with a story and it was glorious.  Then, I spent the better part of a year in a fervor, writing at a breakneck pace, making things up as I go along, like I thought I could do like I used to when I was known for my dungeon master skills (yup, I actually had a reputation for a while as a creative and fun DM in Dungeons and Dragons!).  After it's all done I take a break.  I write other things.  I start to decide I'm going to be serious about my writing and I write every day and I'm doing it, I'm really doing it!

Months later, returning to my manuscript, I realize very quickly how much work the damn things needs.  It's a mess.  A disaster.  A fucking hurricane of jumbled word-vomit that forms a spiral that I can't see going anywhere but down through the pipes at the bottom of my piss-stained toilet.  What am I going to do with this thing?  Reading through it, it is clear to me how much the entire project ran away from me.  I created way too much material for a simple fantasy novel; I can find the pieces of at least six separate works and counting!  I created an epic; I created a monster!  What do I do?  What can I do?

Simple.  For now.  Write a new novel.  I think that if I am not able to do that and do not have the perseverance for such a task, I will never be a financially successful (it pays my bills and I live without another job!) writer.

---