This is K.M. Wyland, and you are listening to the 81st episode of the word play podcast.

I've spent most of this week inching forward in my manuscript.

If ever a story proved the need for saving deletions in a separate folder, this one has.

I learned long ago that copy-pasting deleted data into a separate file,

instead of just flat-out erasing it.

It can save a lot of peace of mind and make it easier to cut material,

since it's not as if I'll be losing my precious words and hard work altogether.

But not until this current story,

have I ever gone back and salvaged so many deleted scenes? Due to the complicated

timeline of this story, I originally wrote nearly 50 pages of scenes that I then deleted

in order to open the story and what I felt was a better place.

As always, I copy-pasted my deletions into another folder, never really expecting them to see

the light of day again.

But as the story has progressed, I've been delighted to discover I can reuse many of these scenes later in the story.

There's no easier or more fun way to boost your word count than to paste in complete chapters from the delete folder.

Are you writing what you know? The latest post in the video series on my blog offers some examples via David Gutersen's east of the mountains,

of how important it is to know our subject matter. You can watch the video on my blog at Wordplay-K-M-Y-L-N-W-E-I-L-N-D.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week's pie. New videos are posted every Wednesday.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week's podcast.

The second installment in the most common writing mistake series,

entitled Are You Using There as a crutch?

...