Writing Short

 

I honestly don't know how I cracked the 80,000 word threshold on my first two novels, and I'm not going to reread them because...well, as a writer, you know you've read your novel one thousands times already in the editing process.

With this manuscript, my third, I vowed not to obsess over word count. I focused on getting the story down and adding "color" and the five senses as appropriate -- all those tricks we've been told ad nauseum. Yesterday I finally wrote the final scene and I decided to check my word count, convinced it would be too long and I would need to start cutting. I have forty-one thousand. 

Half.

Sorry experts, but I can't add 40,000 descriptors. I already have too many adjectives and adverbs as is. 

I'm desperate for real advice that actually works. If you have some, send it my way!