Revising Weak Words

I am sitting in a warm ski lodge, working away on two manuscripts and this blog while my son and his friends speed down the slopes.

I've been known to strap on skis and give the hill a try, but my best friends wouldn't call me athletic.  I did stagger through a 5K "run" about a year and a half ago, after months of training.  But I haven't stayed with it.  I kept waiting for that "high" that runners say they get.  It never showed up.

I do get a "high" from a lovely turned phrase, the perfect verb, the sentence that says exactly what I want it to.  That's probably why I don't mind revising too much.

The "Find" function is my friend when I'm cleaning up my first draft.

I scoured the web searching for lists of “weak words” (that, really, almost, etc), compiled them, and saved them. Then, while I was writing, I paid attention to the words I use as crutches (I'm very bad with 'just' and 'only') and add them to my list. Now that the manuscript is done, I use "Find" to trace those weak words.  Often I find I can simply delete them, but I'll rewrite as necessary.

I find this process quite soothing. It feels so good to purge those useless, soft words and make the story tighter, better.