Maggie’s Adjective/Adverb Challenge

To write a piece, cutting adverbs and adjectives is difficult, to say the least.  I couldn’t even do it in that first sentence, nor this one it seems.   It is a challenge, indeed!  And there was another, in the third sentence, and this one too.

I suppose I should stop counting them.  The object of this exercise, as I understand it, is not to omit all adverbs and adjectives, but to use as few as possible.  I am doing my best, and will leave the counting to the creator of this challenge, our dear Maggie.  But really…could I have written that last sentence with the same meaning, having left out the word ‘dear’?  I suppose I could have.  But it would have lost so much.

I have read some works that are overflowing with descriptive words, almost to the point of making me dizzy.  I understand Maggie’s point.  I try to find interesting descriptive words myself, when I’m writing.  While some may overdo it, it is lovely to read words on a page that so beautifully take you to another place, or enable you to feel what the characters or the writer is feeling.

I do not know how successfully I have accomplished the task at hand, but I love writing.  I could not in good conscience, pass up this challenge.  Thank you, Maggie.