spill (for clarification)

[digitalusrex.livejournal.com]

in incubus dreams, i got about halfway through before i began unofficially counting the number of times miss laurell used the world "spill" (or "spilled," "spilling," etc). unofficially, i counted maybe 8 or 9 "spills" before i started officially counting. 32 after that.

having started re-reading danse macabre, in the first 160 pages or so: 11. [EDIT: 16 at 314 pages. EDIT EDIT: 21 at 383 pages (also, 4 times on one page!)]

i know i have favorite words that i like to use, but this goes above and beyond. now, while reading danse macabre, i've tried to decide if other words could have been substituted and stayed true to the original meaning of the passage. yep.

a LOT of things annoy me about the series, especially the last 4 books, but this "spill" nonsense is what is bugging me this week. if miss laurell had an editor with ballz, perhaps it would have made a difference?

have you all noticed this overusage of the word "spill"?