The other day in workshop I, the "tiger" who normally chases extra words from my own and others' manuscripts, used the sentence, "He shook his head back and forth."   My friendly worshop members who love it when they can catch me on such phrases brought it immediately to my attention that to shake one's head means to move it back and forth.  The "back and forth" is superflous.  The same goes for nodding.  Don't add "up and down" because "up and down" is exactly what nodding means.  And here is another that I hear constantly:  "continue on."  Here again is a phrase with a supefluous word.  If you continue–you do not need to add "on."  There are  other such phrases that are repetitive, and I'll mention them as they come to me.

Meanwhile, here is a market some of you may not know.  Unlike Writing For Dollars that ironically pays only $10 for an accepted manuscript,   The Dollar Stretcher pays 10 cents per word.  Gary Foreman is editor.  Query with a strong title and a good idea on how to save money.  See www.stretcher.com .  My most recent article for this on-line and print publication, titled "New Income from Orinary Skills"  (Sept. 2007), was a profile of a friend who makes a good living house sitting and animal sitting.  An earlier one he took was "Save the Last Drop–You Paid For it." That was my fourth sale of that title, between 1975 and 2007.  Each article was a little different and slanted to the publication that accepted it.  Pay ranged from $50 to $500. 

Keep sending those manuscripts out!! They earn nothing sitting in your file drawer!