I was reading over my latest blog entry and I realized something: it was incredibly vague. I used placeholders such as "it's" to talk about my story, but I never mentioned a thing about it.
In fact, I believe I can now consider it a "pesk" word for that post. Yes, I realize "pesk" isn't a word (my browser is continually informing me as I type it in and it underlines it in squiggly red) but I once had the incredible opportunity to have an editor read a short piece I had written, and that was the word she used. I incorporated it into my vocabulary then and still use it to this day.
What is a pesk word? We all have them, but we rarely realize that they are there. Even for those of us who don't write on a daily basis can find them in our speech. The word "like" is a common placeholder, and therefore overused. A pesk word. I, myself, use the words "also" and "awesome" in my speech on an hourly (sometimes minute-ly) basis.
In my writing, the word "just" was my biggest pesk word a few years ago, and a "highlight all" search through my stories would reveal a ratio that is too embarrassing to repeat of "just"s to other words. Lately, I've been editing them out as I go (it's hard for me not to see the word just now...it pops out like a grammar mistake) and I have very nicely come to the 166/94,304 ratio I currently stand in. However, other words have picked up the slack, such as "that" and "even". I really need to work on that.
It's just that even small words can be obnoxious. (See what I did there?)
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