I get wordy (Hey! It only took me three words to say that). Knowing this already, I cut out a lot of adverbs and modifiers before I finished the rough draft of my memoir. From the feedback I received, it clearly helped clean up my paragraphs and clarify my message. Moreover, I carefully chose the words I did include. Instead of saying "fell into a chaotic nightmare," I said "erupted..." (this was an awesome suggestion from a peer reviewer). Even with few words, the language can shape the story. Thankfully, now I know what works, so thank you! Hopefully, I'll continue to exclude the fluff- until it's necessary, at least.
In addition to my love of elaborate description, I often take on too general of a subject; I want to do too much in too little space, and it ends up being a mess. This results from my indecisiveness and wishy-washy tendencies toward writing assignments. I get all excited about writing something, but with too many ideas in my head, I shut down and everything automatically goes into a blender. Then, my rough draft slides onto the table all chunky and sad. I must force myself to pick a topic, stick with it, and write it down. The time for chunky, sad blender papers has passed, and I'm on my way to overcoming this obstacle so I can run into another one.
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