A few years ago, I discovered that I have a tendency to reuse certain phrases, so I made a graphic for that stage when I think the book is done but it hasn't yet gone off to an editor. It's helped to turn this into a game of sorts: do a search for the word or phrase, see how many times I've used it, and then knock it down as far as I can. I can get "really" from over fifty to under three. I'm allowed one "turns out," "all things considered," and "despite the fact" per manuscript. 

I remember hearing an author say when she finished her draft she went through it systematically removing every instance of "was" that she could find. Tedious, but probably effective! That's next on my list. 

This is a spinoff from one of my existing series and I'm excited to share it with the world, but baby steps :)