Sitting on your laurels leads to fatty tissues and stiff muscles.
In writing it leads to excess words and stiff writing.
You need to exercise your writing just as much as you need to exercise your body.
And if you let it go too long, you'll need to be radical in that exercise.
Here are 2 more exercises that will eliminate fat from your writing diet.
In both cases, these exercises are meant to be included in a regular exercise regimen.
Perhaps one day a week, rather than work on your real writing, you can concentrate on writing for you.
That one day of exercising your writing will clean out your fatty writing cells and keep your writing fit and clean.
1.
Write a description without adjectives or adverbs This is much harder than it seems.
Your objective is to write a descriptive paragraph.
One paragraph that describes a scene, a person, a thing, or an action.
The trick is that you are not allowed to use adjectives or adverbs.
Your paragraph should invoke an emotion in your reader.
It should fully describe whatever you have selected.
Each time you repeat this exercise, you should chose a different emotion.
You should also choose a different noun.
Cycle through the various things you can describe.
The first week might be a scene.
On the second week try doing a person.
And so forth until you have completed the cycle.
If you wish to repeat the cycle make sure you don't chose the same thing to describe.
Every time you describe a scene, for example, be sure to choose a different scene.
2.
Write an action story without using adjectives or adverbs.
Unlike the previous exercise, this time you need to describe a specific type of story.
It needs to be active.
You need to feel the punch of the fist as it drives into the fighter's jaw.
You need to see the spittle fly from his face.
You need to smell the blood dripping from his lip.
The story and the action need to change every week.
Before you start to write the story you need to choose an emotion that you will evoke in the reader.
Be sure to check that you have succeeded.
Don't make it a long story, one or two paragraphs is enough.
Again the purpose is to move your reader without ever using an adjective or an adverb.