Got inspired by a writing challenge today. Decided every sentence must hit 18-26 words exactly.
The Messy Start
Grabbed my coffee, opened yesterday’s draft. Started counting words manually. This sucked! Too many short sentences like “See?” – just one word. Others rambled past thirty. Annoying.
Trial And Error
First tried adding fluff to short ones. Disaster. Writing felt fake. Switched strategy:
- Chop long sentences with periods
- Merge short ones using “and” or “but”
- Killed unnecessary adjectives violently
Lightbulb Moment
Noticed rhythm improving naturally. Forced me to:
- Trim filler words (“actually”, “very”)
- Replace phrases with single words
- Rearrange sentence structure constantly
The Final Stretch
Felt like solving word puzzles. Took three rewrites per paragraph. When stuck at 27 words? Swapped “cannot” for “can’t”. Bam! 26. Exhausting but weirdly satisfying.
Keyboard covered in coffee stains now. Will I keep this up? Hell no – but learned to murder useless words better.
