to murder my darlings

i got that quote from my MLA handbook, handy book. now i know why i wrote poetry for so long-- i can't sustain a lengthy discussion without rambling or going off tangent. writing these essays (essay, i'm still working on the first one) has been hell. analysis is fun, no matter how tedious it gets, there's so much to uncover in a text that i find myself happily jotting away. the problem is writing. i hate having to admit that because i've always considered myself to be a good writer. i used to teach this to college students, why am i having such a hard time with this?
1. i suppose i want to surpass myself. i know i can do a decent paper if i wanted to. but a decent paper isn't enough. i want it to be stellar.
2. i'm hung up on style, i want it to be beautiful and poetic. but that takes too much space.
3. another problem is the volume of ideas i've generated in my analyses. i'm so in love with every idea that i can't bear to leave any of them out. but i have a 3,500 word limit. yaaaah. problema kasi ang daldal...
so a 3,500 word essay looks like it's going to go a bit over the limit. i've decided what the heck, write everyhting you want and then when it's all over, murder the darlings... *weep*

have to get some sleep. maybe tomorrow i'll finally be done with this goddam paper.