Today’s challenge is for me to declutter my writing. Oh, and this also includes cleaning up my work area.

Let’s tackle the latter part of the challenge first, shall we?

Crickets chirp.

More crickets chirp.

Still more crickets chirp.

How about I create a new directory (folder, for you Mac and Windows Vista/7/8 people*) on my computer to put my latest writing project files in and call it a day? Cool? Cool.

* Truth be told, I am one of those Windows Vista/7/8 people. But I grew up calling folders directories. Even Apple called them directories, back when ProDOS was AWESOME. It was, too. I’m not kidding. Actually, there is a subtle difference between a folder and a directory, but no need to quibble over minor details.

OK, back to decluttering my writing. The key lesson to be learned is to strip out, eradicate, and remove all the extraneous, unnecessary, nonessential, unneeded, pointless, superfluous words.

Methinks this may be a tough lesson for me to learn. NaNoWriMo is all about writing gobs of text with no editing allowed. Editing, which includes decluttering, is reserved later months. Nothing I’ve written for NaNo thus far is worth decluttering. Cannibalizing, yes. Decluttering, no.

Still, I will make an effort to work on this challenge in my everyday writing.