Editing: Cutting the creation, for a good reason

I’m reading “The Newbies Guide to Publishing”  by Joe Konrath. Really good stuff! For new writers, but also for anyone else who wants to know what happens behind the scenes. Have a look at it, it’s worth it! What I would like to talk about here is: editing. I’m not doing much of it yet, but it’s something that every writer should do, again and again. The first draft is NEVER good enough for publishing (despite some egotistic opinions of young writers, such as myself :-p). Joe says one should cut down “all the fat”, all adjectives, adverbs, “said” clones (replied, questioned, yelled..), detailed descriptions, etc. Generally, I agree with the idea to have your writing lined up to advance your story, not making any detours. If my character hammers a nail into a wall in the beginning of a book, by the end of the book, my character will have hung a painting on that nail. But what I don’t agree with is to cut down the descriptions.

I’ll give you an example from the book I’m currently writing, a woman and a man are talking to each other.   -       -       -         If I had cut out all the descriptions of how they interact, you would have missed what was going on between them. More then 50% of every-day communication is non-verbal: how you move your head, where do you look, what’s your body pose, where do you keep your hands and so on. If I can convey that, you will know what my characters feel. If I just stick to a dialog, you’ll miss most of it. Now, after some thinking (and I read this editing chapter few days ago) I realize what the difference is: Joe writes books that are page-turners. Thrillers. You read them in a day if you can, because you need to know what happens next. You want to read quickly. But, I don’t want you reading my books in a day. I want you to indulge in them. To read and re-read paragraphs. Because you want to re-live that special moment that my characters just felt. So, I’m happy with my explanation, because I’m currently fixed on Joe's Guide, and this particular advice troubled me. If I don't follow his advice, I need to be confident of the reason. So what’s your opinion on cutting down the story? If you are a writer, how do you cut down your own creation?