It's impossible...oh wait, no it's not. Dreaded WORDCOUNT

So halfway through the creation of book one of The Kindrily, one of my nearest and dearest friends contacted a ghost writer she knew to get some advice for me about getting my book published. At the time I wasn't researching agents, requirements, query process etc in fear that I would get discouraged and never finish my story. One of the biggest shockers the wise ghost writer hit me with was that my book should be around 100k words for a first time author. I quickly did a word count (keep in mind only HALF the book had been written) and I was at 70k words. I panicked--a little--but kept writing, keeping in mind that I needed to get to the point a little quicker than originally planned.
The end result...book one was over 140k words AND I was leaving out a few scenes that I really wanted to include. So of course my reserach began and I discovered that 120k was a well accepted max. Still, how was I going to cut out 20 THOUSAND words? It seemed impossible.
The thing about impossibility, it's an overused concept. Anything is possible if you really put your mind to it. Over the past month or so I have slowly but surely cut my word count to 121k words. And included those original scenes that make the story more complete.
The few people that have read the book all ask how and what could I have possibly cut out? Trust me, you won't even notice the changes (the story is just that good). I'm hoping to reach just under 120k by this weekend. Why? Because I don't want to lose an agent's interest because of a high word count. They don't create these guidelines just to torture us. They do it because there are expectations and requirements by publishers. No agent will take on a wordy book by a newbie knowing they'll never be able to sell it. Oh, AND because I enjoy making the impossible a reality.