So I'm normally quite good at sticking to word counts. I keep a good, close eye on the targeted number of words. Normally, I shoot a little bit high and have to trim back on some words, which is fine because tighter editing improves the final product anyway. Sometimes I'm right on or just under my word count, and that makes me feel like I can't edit the words down as tightly as I otherwise would--but I'm consoled in the fact that I'm "on budget" for words, which developers really appreciate.

For my Adventurers League adventure (the one due tomorrow or, at the latest, Monday), I've overshot by a huge margin, and it's becoming a problem.

I first have to give credit to my developers; when I submitted my outline for my 5,000 word assignment, one of the comments back was "this seems like an awful lot to fit into a two-hour time slot." So when I started my writing, I cut out some pieces that I knew would make it go long.

I didn't cut nearly enough. I had just north of 7,000 words, which means the whole thing is about half again as long as it should be. That's like writing a 200-page novel that sprawls over more than 300 pages. No matter how good it is, it's just too darned long for the medium (I'm looking at you, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

So I've had to cut, and cut, and redraft accordingly so the cuts don't create glaring omissions. I'm still at almost 6,000 words as of this morning, and I'm having trouble finding what to cut next. Each of my words are special snowflakes, and removing one out of every six words is hard (and, no, despite my friend's suggestion, I'm not just going to delete every sixth word). I've turned it over to my tireless wife and editor Stephanie, to have her help with the hard decisions about what has to go. If I can cut another 500, that puts me within a 10% margin and will probably be fine. That would still be way too much over-writing for a print project, but as a pdf adventure, I've been told this is okay.

So, this is why I try not to over-write; paring back text is really hard, and it's not much fun.  But I'll get there!