At the time I’m writing this post, I only have 19 more stories to go before I finish Holiday Heat for good. Now I just have to balance job searching with writing so I can do both without getting too blah about the whole thing. However, since today we just booked a flight for my long-distance partner to come visit, I’m feeling more excited and maybe that’ll help.

Anyway, here’s the six words for October:

• THAT — 639 to start, 520 to finish — removed 119
  • Last month it was 749/625/124. So I used the word less than last month, but I still removed a bunch.
• JUST — 187 to start, 171 to finish — removed 16
  • Just was a hard one to cut this month — even harder than last month.
• VERY — 120 to start, 113 to finish — removed 7
  • Most of these were actually forms of “every” or “delivery”.
• WHICH — 58 to start, 55 to finish — removed 3
  • Removing “which” is hard, because I usually replace it with “that”, “just”, or “only”, all of which are words I’m trying to use less often. It’s annoying. My goal is to not have more than one “which” per printed page once I put out the print version.
• REALLY — 90 to start, 79 to finish — removed 11
  • I’m still trying not to use “really” as an adverb, and instead only use it in dialogue. Success has been mixed.
• ONLY – 58 to start, 57 to finish — removed 1
  • I have a tendency to replace “just” with “only”, which is why I do “just” second and “only” sixth. And whenever I try to replace “only”, it usually ends up being “just” or “that”. Conundrum.

I’ve sent the October cover models to my artist. This month it’s going to be Morgan, who shows up in three stories — the most she’s ever been in in any edition of the collection.

In job-related news, the good phone interview and panel interview I had last month amounted to nothing. I have an interview for a job that way underpays, but the benefits are great and it seems like an awesome company to work for so I can probably stick it out for a year and then try to get a promotion. Plus, it comes with occasional overseas travel, and I’ve never been off the North American continent.