Now that Holiday Heat is out in the wild (the January edition, anyway), it’s time to start working on the February edition. I’ve actually been revising for the past couple of weeks, and I just finished my fourth and final draft — the one where I check for the six words I overuse. Here’s how I did:

• THAT — 537 to start, 440 to finish — removed 97
• JUST — 198 to start, 156 to finish — removed 42
  • This includes uses of the word “adjust” and “adjustment”, so it’s not wholly accurate.
• VERY — 124 to start, 120 to finish — removed 4
  • Most of these were actually forms of “every”, which means I’m doing better with descriptive words instead of just using “very” all the time.
• WHICH — 62 to start, 57 to finish — removed 5
• REALLY — 78 to start, 68 to finish — removed 10
  • I’m trying not to use “really” as an adverb, and instead only use it in dialogue. I’m getting better, but I’m not perfect yet.
• ONLY – 78 to start, 70 to finish — removed 8
  • I have a tendency to replace “just” with “only”, which is why I do “just” second and “only” sixth.

Next up: the creation of a cover. I’m thinking I’ll go with Mason (from Baker’s Dozen) for this one — he appears a couple of times in the February edition, and he shows up more as the year progresses. The hardest part will be finding a model who looks enough like him and who has a full-sleeve tattoo with a Siberian Husky in it. I might have to compromise, or my artist might have to do some tricky work with transforming an existing tattoo. We’ll see.