The Parking Lot

I love Austin Kleon’s newsletter.

And I’ve really loved the past few that talk about finishing his next book, particularly 3 Tricks for Self-Editing, which includes one of my favorite tricks: read your work out loud.

That’s why I was so delighted by Tuesday’s edition, Just cut stuff. In it he writes:

“At this editorial stage, it’s about cutting what isn’t working, or what’s sticking out, or what’s not serving the total thrust of the thing.

So, I’ll cut a whole sentence, or even a whole paragraph. It’s amazing how often the subtraction improves things. At the very least, you rarely miss the cutting, and you’ve saved yourself a lot of work. (Sometimes the simplest cut has a maximum impact.)

The things I tend to cut are leftovers from previous drafts that stick out like a tail on an animal that doesn’t need it. Or things I thought were too clever to cut earlier in the process.

I am ruthless at this point of the process and I enjoy practicing the old writing advice to “kill your darlings.” But if you find it difficult to kill your darlings, there is another great option: “relocate your darlings.”

Instead of simply deleting things from your manuscript, cut and paste the darling into a whole new file. You may not ever do anything with it, but you know it’s still there in case you need it.”

Oh, I thought. Austin Kleon has a Parking Lot.

Whenever I start a project with a new client, I set up four documents: the contract, Meeting Notes (which include a running record of conversation transcripts, discussion topics, and homework for both of us), the project itself, and what I call The Parking Lot.

The Parking Lot might be the most important of the four.

I organize the parking lot just like I organize the proposal or manuscript, with sections that mirror the project: Overview, Introduction, Chapter One, and so on and so forth. When an idea has outlived its usefulness in the actual draft, we cut it and put it in The Parking Lot. It's an insurance policy for writers (and for me!)—a place that gives us the freedom to delete huge sections of something we’ve already written without worrying that it's going to disappear forever.

A lot of people are nervous about this at first.

It’s taking what they consider "finished work" and removing it from the document—and many times, it feels like a step back rather than a step forward. Word count goes down. The number of pages drops. But if the material is in The Parking Lot, it’s technically still there. And of course, usually there's a word or story within it that's so specific that if we want to find it again, we can search and locate it instantly.

But here’s the truth: almost nothing comes back from The Parking Lot.

It exists in a parallel universe, accumulating quietly in the background. And by the end of most projects, The Parking Lot is almost as long as the project itself, which is one way I know we're finished and another way to know we've cycled through a lot of ideas and landed on the best ones.

Sometimes I can’t resist. I glance through the parking lot just before we’re going to call a project “done.” It's like looking through old photos of ex-boyfriends. I can remember why I liked an idea or a paragraph so much, and sometimes I even feel a pang of regret.

But after a minute, the feeling passes even when something seemed absolutely essential when we first put it down. With time and the way ideas evolve, it turns out it wasn’t or what we were trying to accomplish with a phrase or section wasn’t necessary. Either way, I'm always glad I kept those words, phrases, and paragraphs…even if I never used them again.

So whether you call it a parking lot or a darling relocation center, the principle is the same: sometimes the best way forward is knowing you have a safe place to put the words and ideas you leave behind.

(Photo by Ryan Searle on Unsplash)

P.S. This post is part of my new effort to share something here on the first Friday of each month. I was telling a friend about this, and he said, “I'm also trying to post more to my Substack. They should add this condition to the next DSM!” So if you also suffer from this malady, welcome!