New Year's Resolutions--Trimming

What's the one, sure, no-fail way to lose weight? Burn less calories than you take in.
The burning's not that much of a problem for me these days. I like to run and swim and play frisbee. But food is just so tasty and social and easy, I love cooking.
So the hardest--and most effective--thing for me is cutting unnecessary calories. That second bowl of cereal, that extra cup of juice, or--god forbid--M&Ms left out in candy jars. Before I eat something, I really have to stop and evaluate not only what I'm eating but why. If I need a quick snack to hold me through accounting, that's fine, here's an apple, but if the cookie in the cafeteria is calling my name just because it's sitting out there and I'm not really hungry, I need to turn around and run the other way.
Words are just like calories. You need a certain amount to be healthy, to build up plot and realistic characters. But too much and your readers start getting turned off and if you're not writing for readers, then what are you doing?
I know I’ve talked about this a lot, but I truly believe that being concise is something a writer must be in control of and it's my biggest obstacle. They might start out slowly--an adverb here, a series of adjectives there--and I might pout, "They're just so good! Surely one wouldn't hurt..." That's how it starts. Nix it.
So how many is really too many? JA Konrath says to eliminate everything that doesn’t move the plot forward. That's easier said than done when they’re your words and you’ve really come to like them, whether they’ve still got their shiny new gloss, or have become as old and familiar as Grandma’s afghan. But really, you don’t need to describe your main character from head to toe, or their life history or the exact floor plan of their house. I will always come into your story with connotations for girl, retired, home. Sparse, unique details are all that’s needed to shape the impressions the I started with into the images you want me to see. Too much information brings the pace of your writing to a screeching halt as I struggle to hold all these details into my mind at once.
Sidetracking is equally distracting. Just as it’s difficult to focus on a lecture when two people behind you are having a separate conversation, unnecessary information interrupts the flow and causes me to lose track of what's important, and muddles my understanding of the story.
As I've admitted, It's difficult for me to do my own editing. If I have to sit and labor over whether to keep a phrase, I generally keep it because that's easier. And the next time I read through the piece I sit and fidget over the same words again. So I suggest cutting out any and all questionable words, saving them somewhere else or saving the document under a different filename and going to sleep. Wait until the next day, then read over your chopped piece. See if those details are necessary for the story or were just necessary for you to write it.
Or try what I do and delete the words completely, wait, and try to write them again. I promise you won't completely forget your story overnight, and the writing will almost always be more condensed the second or third or howevermany times around.

Next up: scheduling