Authors' Helpline discussion

Something I do wrong quite regularly is to get fixated on a word, or sometimes a phrase, and then I start using that word or phrase in my work, over and over again.
Readers pick up on this of course, and it annoys them to the point where they find my writing irritating. Luckily for me, my first reader points most of these out to me, but sometimes they still slip by.
In my book Hordes, I used the word 'Bust' (referring to a police raid on an illegal operation) so many times that, when I re-read the book, even I got tired of the word. It was on every page, sometimes many times on one page. It was sickening, nauseating, and it spoiled a large part of the book. During the current edit (which I'm busy with right now), I am substituting the word 'Bust' with all kinds of other words, like Raid, Arrest, Search etc.
Another example is my use of the phrase 'A moment later,' as in 'A moment later she turned and jumped through the window.' My work is peppered with this phrase, but once again it's a hindrance to reading the story.

When writing the initial story, it's more important to get the story down, so I don't concentrate on that kind of problem, but it's important to recognize and fix this before your work goes out to the public, as it will annoy them. I'm not saying that all writers have this problem, but if you do, it is crucial to recognize and correct the problem!