Okay. Confession: I'm reading this book at the moment...and...I'm not completely loving it. I don't hate it--it's not a "throw the book at the wall" or "well, that's X hours I'm never going to get back" scenario. But I'm not carving minutes out of a full day to keep reading. I'm not filtering out the world to stay in the one the author created. I'm just not invested. Know what I mean?

Here's the thing, though: Now that I know how much effort goes into writing a book, I feel like I ought to give an author a second, third and fourth chance. Read all the way through to the end and take what I can from the experience.

Too accomodating? Possibly. It certainly got me thinking about more positive reading experiences, which was so much fun, that, well, here are some of them, (if you're familiar with my Muse Fuel page you'll know I love writing "favourite lists"):

Sitting at the kitchen table aged three, reading out loud to my mum, while she did the washing up. Not wanting to surrender my new Enid Blyton books long enough for the sales assistant to process them. Being allowed to read anything at the dinner table! My first Judy Blume. Getting to grips with Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Orwell and Huxley. Lying in the tall grass on a summer day reading Agatha Christie. Sitting in a rickety old armchair with my first Violet Winspear romance. Hardy Boys books under the bleachers at school. Collecting Nancy Drew mysteries in hardback. Deciding one math textbook equaled getting to read three Sweet Valley High books. Giggling with my best friend over the names of heroes and heroines in 70's and 80's romances. Skipping piano lesson to finish the latest Ann Rule. Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, in a caravan, on a stormy grey day. Vowing to stop reading Stephen King books late at night while on  my own. Continuing to read Stephen King books late at night while on my own! Snatches of the latest Harry Potter in between meetings at work. A pub in Bath, a crackling fire and a dog-eared copy of Our Mutual Friend. Bridget Jones being responsible for making me laugh out loud...on public transport! The year I made my entire Christmas present list Nora Roberts titles. Holiday suitcases containing more books than clothes. Buying an eReader and having more suitcase space for clothes! Filching a Lee Child book off hubby and one chapter in, knowing I had to read them all. Reading the weekend newspapers over brunch.

It's all about: the joy, the thrill, the escape. The knowledge gained. The more questions asked. The pounding of your heart, the turning of the page. Time passing unnoticed. The speed-reading as you devour. The slowing down when you don't want to reach the end. The worlds you get to visit. The sigh when dialogue speaks straight to your heart. Lyrical prose. Words blurring on the page just before tears fall. And the feeling when a writer says the thing you've always secretly believed, but thought no one else did!

Then there's the one exquisite and unchanging truth: There will always be a TBR pile!

So what are some of your favourite reading memories?

I love reading quotes from famous writers. Some make me laugh out loud and some produce a wry, knowing smile. Invariably, they all speak to me in some way and make me think : "Yes! What he said!" So I thought I'd do a series of blog posts throughout the year that took a quote from a famous writer and blog about their pearl of wisdom.

First up is: "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings" - Stephen King

I'm a slow writer. I tend to write and then edit what I've written. Being a slow writer means there's a lot more room for my inner editor to think about the way in which I want to say something, rather that simply writing down what I want to say. And when I write something particularly prophetic - in a particularly poetic way, (IMHO), of course I become emtionally attached to those words and want to keep them, highlight them in the text, and hold them up as a shining beacon to my talent, regardless of whether it's on message with the rest of the story I'm telling ;)

But what I'm learning is that "killing your darlings" is both necessary and, rest assured, something you can totally survive, if you can bear not to be too precious about your work.

Being overly precious about your work will come across in the text and not in a good way. To be honest, the more you go over and over your work, the less realistically you are able to judge. You become too close to it. You need someone who can look big-picture and drill down into the detail - someone who can spot the holes and the purple prose and save you from yourself, so that what survives is the story.

There really is no room in writing for your ego. It gets in the way of what you're trying to get at...the Truth.

Does killing your favourite line, or a favourite paragraph, hurt? Absolutely. But writing is also about cutting the extraneous - no matter how lyrical, to get to the heart of your story. And when has anyone ever said writing shouldn't ever hurt? A little pain is good for the soul and sure helps you get to the heart of your writing so that you can express your truth clearly.

Stephen King wasn't the first writer to coin the phrase "kill your darlings" but in this context his words really speak to me and give me a lesson worth learning.

What do you think? Any of you have trouble with this when you're writing or when you're revising your work? Or, do you have a different quote from a famous writer that helps you with your writing? Feel free to leave me a comment...