I’ve found some advantages to being raised by lawyers.  I do not fear bureaucracies, research, or an argument I think necessary.  However, I do face a serious drawback in my writing: grandiloquence.
I consider this the second great hurdle in my writing career.  The first required me to muzzle perfectionist tendencies while drafting.  Passing it allows me to finish what I start, producing completed works instead of useless fragments.
Now I battle wasted words, hunting inefficiencies to carve them from the body of the work.  But line editing and chopping adverbs will not suffice.  The voice must survive, the character of expression that produces art.
Maddening enough, but I must also find a way to do this without circling back to face that first hurdle once more.  Only exhaustive vigilance keeps word worries from creeping into drafting from their proper place in revision.
Note that I do this in revision, because I find it easier.  Every writer must make this decision alone.  I cannot even guarantee that I will always keep it in the revision stage.  As my writing evolves over the years, I expect terse training to overpower verbosity.
For now, I press harder as I reach the hurdle, legs tensing to leap while maintaining the pace.
Last night before sleep overtook me, I made a connection.  Loose writing tends toward passive structure and excessive use of the verb “to be.”  E-Prime, a concept I first encountered in the writings of Robert Anton Wilson, eliminates it entirely.  Would writing in E-Prime improve my writing?
I shall experiment with it.  I cannot envision the elimination of a major verb improving expression, but I think it merits investigation.
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That took 277 words, trimmed down from 433, written in E-Prime.  I don’t know if I like the voice.
UPDATE: I contacted the author of the book that cited my essay.  Turns out he has a Ph.D. and teaches Religious Studies at the university level.  Sounds like a good citation to me.