Here’s an exercise that really works
Write a full page on any topic or theme. Make it your best. Then edit, creative use of action beats and attribution, deleting unneccessary adverbs and adjectives. Terse and compelling dialoge. Persuasive, convincing, and after you have perfected it, follow the 20% rule, which is to eliminate ANOTHER 20 per cent when you are certain there is nothing more to leave out.
In other words, follow the basic tenets of the proven approach to successful self-editing. Read your masterpiece aloud to yourself. Make additional edits that suggest themselves by doing so. Read the whole page and repeat the process. Watch as it morphs with each rewrite. This can be thrilling to behold! Maybe let it sit for a day and then go back to it and do it again.
Make it perfect, and then… DELETE IT ALL with no way to recover any of it. What?
Now recreate the full page. What will happen is you will only recall a few brilliant parts and the rest will be new, and fresh. If you can’t recall everything verbatim, it really wasn’t worth remembering.
Good advice?
Until it goes to press, everything is mallable. Allow your words to stay out after curfew
Wow…. very intriguing T! To write my best work, then delete it! This will certainly challenge my ego!