Before I get to the part of the post pertaining to the title, let me announce the winners of Alan Cumyn’s novel, All Night. In case you’re new to this blog (if you are, welcome and help yourself to cheese sticks), Alan’s interview is here.
Caught up? Good. Thanks to the magic of the Random Number Generator, the winners are . . .
Are . . .
Are . . .
Are . . .
Ellen Reagan
Lyn Miller-Lachmann
Aussa Lorens
Congrats, guys! Please email me at lmarie7b(at)gmail(dot)com to let me know the email address attached to your device (Kindle; smartphone; iPad). I’ll have Alan’s book sent to you.
Now that I have your attention, I have a workout you fitness buffs can try. It’s called the Winter Workout.
• First, don over your pajamas a sturdy pair of warm-up pants like the ones a good friend bought for me to prevent more blog posts like this or this.
• Second, add to your ensemble a polar fleece pullover, a fleece hat, fleece coat, fleece-lined boots, and fleece-lined mittens, which combined undoubtedly weigh as much as the average fourth grader. Consider yourself a weightlifter just for wearing these clothes.
• Third, trudge toward your vehicle through drifts almost knee deep in places.
• Fourth, firmly grasp your snow brush by the handle. Place against the snow piled high on your vehicle. Brush in an even manner back and forth from the hood to the trunk of the car. Repeat 70,000 times or until your arm tires, whichever comes first.
• Fifth, stop to wipe your runny nose with the back of your glove, because you did not bring tissue. Dare anyone to say anything.
• Sixth, firmly grasp your snow shovel by the handle. Insert the blade of the shovel into the snow and shovel any area in which you need to drive or walk. For example, your driveway or around your parking space. Repeat 70,000 times or until your back gives out, whichever comes first.
• Seventh, go inside and proceed to drink eight cups of warm coffee. Visit the bathroom when needed. Then check the weather on your phone or computer. Slam phone to the desk when you learn that more snow is predicted.
And there you have it! I discovered this workout, because my parking space is by a field. Talk about a wind pocket! The other day, so much snow had fallen, a section of it dormered out of my back passenger window. I could have rented out that space if I hadn’t brushed it off.
The repetition of snow followed by dropping temperatures has gotten old this winter. It almost makes me long for a volcano to erupt. Almost.
Something else has gotten old—the repetition of words in my manuscript. Though I’m in draft mode and don’t usually stop to read what I’ve written, I can’t help noticing that I’m repeating some of the same words and phrases—maybe not quite 70,000 times, but enough. (If you’re wondering why I should care, take a look at some of the reviews on Amazon. Some readers notice when an author did not vary in his or her word choices.) So after writing a paragraph in which I’d used the word suddenly twice, I decided to do a quick check back through my manuscript. Sometimes as I wrote a scene, I highlighted a word I used more than once in a paragraph so that I can change it later. I came up with the following list and the number of times I used that word or phrase.
Felt—125
Judging by—21
Just—119
Looked—70
Nodded—53
Realize/Realized—33
Suddenly—45
Surprised—20
Turned—138
Watched—21
Wondered—50
If you’re wondering (hee hee) how I found out how many times I used a word, in Microsoft Word I used Find and Replace. First, I saved the manuscript. Second, I hit CTRL + H and typed the word. But instead of suggesting a word to replace it, I left that section blank, then hit Replace All. The computer would then tell me how many times the word was replaced. I then hit CTRL + Z to go back to my original version each time, since I’m not yet ready to revise.
As you can see, I have pet words. They’re quick to use in a draft when I’m just trying to get the story down. See? I used the word just again. But when I revise, I need to do the harder work of cutting down on the repetition and strengthening my prose by culling filter words—words that distance a reader from the action. Talk about a workout! Just thinking about it makes me want to drink eight cups of coffee. Think I’ll go grab a cup now. And while I’m at it, this picture expresses my feelings very well about any upcoming snow:
Sometimes repetition is good, as Victoria Grefer of Creative Writing with the Crimson League describes in this post: http://crimsonleague.com/2014/02/02/5033/
Wondering about filter words? Check out Susan Dennard’s post here: http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/05/21/filter-words/
Alan Cumyn photo from his website. Grumpy Cat from somewhere on the Internet. Book cover from Goodreads.
El Space--The Blog of L. Marie 
I love snow. But like any kind of weather too much is no good. It’s been raining here in the UK for months and there are floods in lots of places. Luckily where I live, the ground is a bit higher and we’re okay, but ten miles away in the river valley, they’re up to their knees in the wet stuff. Expect more, erratic behaviour from the weather. Funny that, us humans act strangely and the weather follows suit.
Ugh. Floods are so troubling. And endless rain is a drag. Hope you can keep dry and flood-free.
I’m with you on the snow. I was bored with it long ago and I’m actually missing Florida. At least the weather. The horrid driving, bugs the size of hamsters, and strange level of open bigotry are not missed.
I’ve done that with my books and I have an obsession with ‘just’ and a slew of others. Maybe each other has his or her own set of favorite words because I see these kinds of statements a lot. Feels very inevitable for some reason.
I’ve only visited Florida–places like Miami, North Miami, Orlando, Lakeland, West Palm Beach (landed there), Ft. Lauderdale. Seems like every region of the country has issues.
I’ve come to that conclusion. There’s a lot of nasty weather and each region has its own flavor. Guess we have to remember that Mother Nature is the one in charge.
LOVED this post! Thanks for the giggle first thing in the morning. Scrivener has an option to show you what words you use the most and I press the button with great hesitancy. Sharon Darrow, in my first semester, challenged me to replace all incidences of felt, looked, saw and was. Reading FANGIRL has me aware of “just.” Thanks for the reminder to be aware of my word choice, even if it takes 70,000 tries.
I’ll get to Scrivener with my next novel. This one was too far along to make the Scrivener leap. But I’m glad to know it does that. 😀
You have certainly had your share of snow this winter, Linda. I wish I could send some of our weather up your way. It does sound as though you’re getting plenty of exercise…don’t over do it.
I just checked my current WIP, I won’t say how many times ‘was’ came up…embarrassing!
Congratulations to the winners!
Well, certain words are unavoidable and necessary. I’m sure I have a thousand instances of was. *Shrugs.* All we can do is keep on truckin’.
😆 I shouldn’t be laughing, but I know what you mean!
Ah yes. I know. 😀
Still.No.Snow. 😦
You can have some of ours. Trucks are now in the process of moving it. I’m not sure where it’s going, but they’re moving it from shopping malls. There’s so much of it, it’s hard to see around the piles.
I’ve been playing the find/replace word count game myself. Not a fun way of spending time.
I know. Not fun. I’ve had to stop myself from doing it. 😦
Yay! I can’t wait to read Alan’s book!
I sent the book! Enjoy!
Woo hoo! I won! Love that piece about the winter workout, because we’ve been getting ours in the Northeast too–but not as bad as yours. I’m going to check out that Find and Replace trick too. Some years ago, my mother gave me a program called StoryMill that did word clouds of most commonly used words and also ferreted out cliches. Since my adult novel got slammed in a review for cliches, I became paranoid about weeding them out in Gringolandia, and I’m glad I did. No one said it had cliches.
If you have Scrivener, you can do the word count much easier. This novel isn’t on Scrivener, so I had to do it the old fashioned way.
Your book was sent. Enjoy!
Not sure which workout looks more grueling! Clearing the snow and clearing the repetitive words are both time consuming! Since I too am SO SICK of this snow, I will choose clearing repetitive words. Temperature here will be -7 tomorrow morning. Joy!
Oh man! Keep warm, Maria!
I’m so over winter. What a great job linking the repetition of winter snow maintenance with editing. “Just” and “realized” are some of my pet words too.
Thanks, Stephanie!
Yeah, I’m trying to weed out some of my pet words right now.
Oh, awesome! Thanks so much! Let me double check the right email on my kindle app and then I’ll get you my info, huzzah!
Oh, and I absolutely have pet words. I feel like if someone were to analyze my comments they could pick them out in like 2 seconds. Terrible.
Okay. Let me know and I’ll get the book sent to you!
Yes, the accelerated heart rate produced by eight cups of coffee, plus the calories expended by the body just to keep your extremities from falling off due to the cold, probably amount to quite a workout in themselves. I know that, for me, trying to do any sort of exercise in the cold does seem to require about three times the energy.
I’m on my third cup now, having gone out to work on my car. 🙂
How is Steve’s Quest????