Sturgeon's Law

I ran a concordance application on my manuscript (all the poems I consider decent enough to put in a book) to see what words I use a lot. Here's my top 10:

Rank, word, uses, percentage

1 The 453 5.6653 %
2 a 270 3.3767 %
3 and 223 2.7889 %
4 of 169 2.1136 %
5 in 135 1.6883 %
6 to 120 1.5008 %
7 You 110 1.3757 %
8 I 88 1.1006 %
9 your 81 1.0130 %
10 on 78 0.9755 %

Okay, okay, I'll find the top "big" words. In that top ten list, I'm happy I used "you" more than "I."

Throwing out all articles, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, variations on "be," and numbers (No, one, and two were all popular), my most-used major word is . . . (fanfare)

43 eyes 18 0.2251 %

Other popular words include line, still (ugh), time, blue, hand (and hands), end, face, light (I knew I was using that one a lot), legs, and world--all used 9 times or more in about 50 poems. Strange bigger words (more than one syllable) that I apparently use more than I remember: stories (6 times) and concrete (5).

On the plus side, I seem to have curtailed my overuse of fire, smoke, black, and breathing, all of which still show up some, but not an alarming amount. This manuscript may have an unhealthy obsession with body parts, though.

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