Friday, January 26, 2007

Not Perfect

I have a confession to make. I know I don't post often to this blog but there is a reason for that. I'm not perfect but I have a very bad perfectionism streak. Usually when I have the time to post here it's after I've done hours of writing, editing, formatting or illustrating and my brain function isn't top quality. That and I have a tendency to spell words according to how I say them (affectionately called mountain hick talk) rather than to how they are meant to be spelled when I'm tired or rushed. My fingers also like to hit keys I don't know they are hitting at times, making words which really don't fit in a particular sentence. So -- I hesitate to post until I have the time to spend 15 minutes to a half hour cleaning up my post. Is it the curse of being a published author -- everyone expects perfection with everything? Or is it my own curse?

My books are as clean as humanly possible, but they also go before at least two other sets of eyes besides mine and sit for months so I see them fresh again. Yes I do edit for others and I'm good at it, but my mind with my own work often sees "its bowl" when in actuality I've typed "it's bowl" -- yes, I know that's wrong -- its without the apostrophe is the possesive form of this pesky little word. Maybe because I KNOW that I don't actually SEE my goof?

I've also had my characters riding their creature and pulling on the "bridal" -- and flashlights throwing wicked "steaks" all over cavern walls. The first error my editor caught, the second, well, let's just say I promise to remove the "steaks" on reprint.

No matter how professional a writer, or editor -- of books, newspapers, magazines, whatever -- we aren't perfect yet I see so often someone being berated because of a mispelled word or missing or wrong punctuation. On one occasion an editor was told she should be ashamed of herself because of her mistake.

Then I came across another writer's blog with a disclaimer at the end of each post. I thought it a very clever idea.

THIS POST HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD BY ANYONE OTHER THAN THE OVERWORKED AUTHOR, SO PLEASE DISREGARD ANY ERRORS IN TYPING, SPELLING, OR PUNCTUATION. Thank you :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your article is very informative and helped me further.

Thanks, David