He felt like a raiding barbarian as slashed his way through the manuscript. He’d overwritten so much in that first draft, trying to learn the story in all its elements, especially the characters. Now he cut, cut, cut.
Next draft, he would probably need to work on continuity and coherency after all this slashing. But that was for the next draft. He was committed to finishing this one.
Michael Seidel, writer 
Interesting–I find that I actually add words when I edit–I tend to write pretty sparely and have to go back and add details (setting, particularly)!
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Yes, I’m usually more like as you state, capturing scenes in the initial blurt and then finding details for setting and massaging for pacing is required. These middle sections are part of the sag. I wrote them to understand what’s going on but now realize, oh, they were fine for me so I understand what’s going on, but it’s not needed for other readers. Cheers
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