Snip, Snip, Snip

I finished the first draft of my short story for Nocturne Bites on Sunday night. That was the goal, and though I had to push to reach it, I did succeed. I also thought that I was 2000 words over maximum word count and I'm like, okay, there are lots of places I can get, including an overly long fight scene in chapter 2, but 2000 words? That's like 14% of the story!

I wasn't quite frantic, but I was concerned. Mentally, I ran through the story, trying to think of places where I could do some...