THAT is a word that can be eliminated.

Today is one of those days where nothing seems settled for some reason.  I feel antsy.  Tropical Storm Debbie is not even going to make it to my house, so I don't know what the problem can be.

 I am working very hard on Tiny bones and trying to make it good enough to publish.  Over the weekend I noticed  I was using the word "that" a lot on one page so I got curious and did a word search to see how many time I had used THAT in the manuscript!  EGADS!!!  Over 900 THAT s........That means......ahem!.....there's the word again...I have to review every single sentence in the book to see if the word  THAT is needed or can be eliminated.  Now, the good news is that the sentences smoothed out and became easier to read and  it improved the "flow" of the story.  Obviously I will have a big job.  I am sometimes glad my books are not 150,000 words long.  This WIP  ( WORK IN PROGRESS) is only about 40,000 right now, so I think I can manage to get it done and  get back to my main job of  editing.  But, it is an important issue.  there are a lot of other words we tend to overuse.   It is probably a good idea to search for the ones you know have a problem with......such as:

THAT
JUST
ACTUALLY
THEN
WHEN
SO
 and any others you might find as you look through the manuscript.  I was amazed.  Now, I need to get back to work.  WRITE........it is a good thing.