I killed an AS

Original sentence:
His wary eyes caught movement as he added the last of his load to the wood already piled against Ivergan's hut.

Current version of sentence:
Most of his load had joined the wood already piled against Ivergan's hut when his wary eyes caught movement.

There was nothing wrong with the original sentence. The use of "as" to join two simultaneous events was perfectly correct. It was not a lazy "as-splice". Even I, the Ranter of As, assassin of -ings and persecuter of apostrophleas, had passed it. However, its being picked on by a slightly hyper critter made me think. I couldn't resist the challenge. So, while adding back some cut material that a wise beta regretted the loss of, I ran over the passage a few times and found a solution that did not add more words (my greatest fear *shudder*).

Gosh, it felt good.

It was the only one of its kind in the whole chapter, poor thing.

Thank you, she murmured modestly.

A short rant on the "as-splice"

"As" is a decent little word, a member in good standing of the conjunction family, and has important work to do. Unfortunately, it gets stuck with a lot of make-work jobs that do nothing but embarrass it.

It is a perfectly good synonym for "while" -- but would you use "while" in one out of every three or four sentences? I doubt it. Yet "as" turns up that often in careless writing. A lot of the time there is no good reason for its use. It is there because doing it is a habit. A bad habit. "As" used correctly gives a feeling of immediacy. An "as-splice" takes it away.

The habit is very common among beginning writers, amateurs, fan-fickers. I don't know how it is picked up, unless by absorption from reading the same sort of stuff. You are what you read; a tolerance for poor writing will not help anyone to get published.
Swift, shallow water tugged at his feet as he felt his way among the slippery rocks.
In this sentence a person (my MC again, lol) is fording a creek. The process of careful stepping and the pull of the water are simultaneous and closely related. Use of "as" in its role as a conjunction is justifiable. In the following examples, it is not.
Mary watched her lamb as Jack and Jill went up the hill.
The sun shone brightly on the ridiculous scene as Jack and Jill tumbled down the hill.
Jack watched as Jill filled the bucket.
"Watched as" is particularly abhorrent--watched what? Watched the other person doing something, of course. "Watched as" is so limp and lame, almost as bad as "The day dawned bright and early." Doing this "as" cr@p over and over builds up a sort of as-resistance in the reader. The potential immediacy of "as" is wasted. The word becomes ineffectual and weak even when it is used correctly, thus weakening everything it touches.

Though I am not overly fond of arbitrary rules, one that I do like is: Never use "as" in a first sentence. The moment I see it in a first sentence, I wince and prepare myself for the worst. Sure enough, there's one in the next paragraph, two in the one after that, and on and on. I lose my appetite. It's hard to crit without yelling, "Stop that as-ing, dammit!" Even when the worst does not happen, having my teeth set on edge by that first as-splice leaves me twitchy.

*Sigh* I did holler at somebody once for using "The day dawned bright and early." She defended it tooth and cliched nail.

Oooo, I love watching the bodies pile up.