Kill your babies

I've been telling my students that as they revise, they must get rid of some of the things they love (because they have written them) so that their essays are more focused, unified, organized. Now I find myself in a similar situation:

Going through files to organize before final portfolios come in, I'm clearing out all the old assignments and extra paper that accumulates during the semester. I'm finding essays/assignment that I've graded, commented on, and that weren't returned to students because those students disappeared. I have a hard time recycling these papers with all my carefully crafted penciled comments, all my conversation with the student.

All my hard work down the drain! I think to myself. Why do I *do* so much commenting? Why do I write so much on their essays? How can I possibly throw away all the evidence of my hard work?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) coined the phrase "murder your darlings" in 1914, which came down to us as "kill your babies." I suppose he's right. Here's the full quotation:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetuate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – wholeheartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” In 12th and final lecture “On Style (given at Cambridge on 28 January 1914 in a series published as On the Art of Writing).

So I have to take my own advice already! Dang.