This is K.M. Lylend.

And you are listening to the 446 episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors

Podcast.

I've been plugging away at my first edit of Dreambreaker.

As you may remember on this edit, I'm focusing on trimming word count.

As all my books always seem to do, the first draft turned out to be longer than I was hoping

at 220,000 words.

So I'm hoping to cut at least 20,000 in this first pass. Fortunately, that

gives me the opportunity to do double duty by also focusing on tightening up sentences,

eliminating unnecessary wordiness that might otherwise go unnoticed,

and cutting out the occasional, telling info dump that has sneaked through.

My writing schedule has been all up in the air, as I'm still putting things back together

after a big move, but I hope to finish with this

and another couple of weeks.

And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy today's topic.

Words are radical or how to cherish language.

Years ago I was hiking with someone around the Scots Bluff National Monument in Western Nebraska. A bird flew over our head. the

Scott's Bluff National Monument in Western Nebraska. A bird flew over our heads, black against a metallic July sky.

A lover of all things beautiful, my hiking partner was the first to point it out.

I shaded my eyes and said, cool, what do you think it is?

And he shrugged and said, don't ask that. It diminishes it if you name it. If you have to put it in a box to understand it, you limit your understanding.

He seemed to have a point and his comment was something I considered for a long time after

...