Heavy Editing and Deleting

For two or three days now, I have been editing my memoir even more. Some  two weeks or so ago, I looked over for typos and other errors, but did not get around to correcting them on the computer until now.  I did more today than I had done in previous days. I was up to nearly 10pm last night editing, and even in the summer I have not felt compelled to start up the late. The earlier I get up in the morning, the sooner I get tired and want to get to bed. I then decided that since I knew I'd be up early this morning, I get to editing as early as possible. I ended up beginning the process for today about an hour after getting up. As such, I got a lot of it done and now only have one chapter left along with the epilogue.

I have asked myself how much to cut. It's my decision, of course, but today I did do a lot of deleting, including at least one long paragraph. I decided to edit some content that I felt I did not need. The word count and page number both have thus decreased. I've ben told the longer a manuscript is, the more turned off some people will be to reading it. But do I really need to follow this? the length should not matter more that the content, and I have been trying to delete any content I think the story could do without. Just another part of the process. 

I want to get this done by the end of this week, as I want to get it ready to send to the publishing contest at Blydyn Square Books. I'm still a little hesitant about this idea, but others have said I should give it a go. The deadline is at the end of September.