"I'm bad at speaking simply, but I'm trying to do better."

That's not too bad.

"I am working at being more concise."

Maybe, "I am working on brevity."

Related, I am working on this as I've been asked to write a book.

The Strunk and White admonition is "Omit needless words," which I always considered an excellent lead by example...

Thanks. I will take that with me as I continue to work on my book. This isn't really the thread for it, so I'll stop here.

> Related, I am working on this as I've been asked to write a book.

If this topic interests you I recommend this book on crafting sentences written by the mother of the famous "Edward Tufte" (one of the most influential designers in the history of software):

https://www.amazon.com/Artful-Sentences-Syntax-as-Style/dp/0...

I've read a number of writing books and I find the key to good writing comes down to writing good sentences. It's also a critical part of being succint, only second to trimming the non-essential from the higher level ideas.

This one highlights many great sentences written by famous authors and breaks down their syntax.