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| My writing helpers otherwise known as my excuses. |
Do you ever read something someone has written such as a letter, email, or an article and find mistakes? Then you wonder how someone could make mistakes so obvious and think, "Shouldn't they know better or at least proofread their work better?" Well, I do that all of the time when I read my own blog posts. Unfortunately, I usually find the problems long after I hit publish and it drives me crazy.
However, I'm trying to get over that. I'm trying not to worry about mistakes I may make because that takes away from the pleasure of communicating with all of you. I am trying to accept that I am doing the best I can under the circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances involve constantly removing one cat from in front of the monitor while another is trying to get on my lap. Sometimes I am writing when I'm really tired so I can publish a post the next morning before I go to work. Sometimes Blogger spacing is not working, so I am concentrating on that instead of concentrating on what I am writing. And sometimes I'm confused because it seems all the grammar rules that I thought I once knew have changed.
But wait, there I go again. I'm making excuses for my blog imperfections instead of accepting that good enough is good enough. While I will try to write well when writing for my blog, life is too short to worry about occasional misplaced modifiers and misspelled words. And that is what I'm going to keep telling myself until I really believe it.
Note: Sometimes I have an idea for a post and the words and the pictures just come together effortlessly and flawlessly. Wow, I love that feeling.
I never seem to find my mistakes until several hours after it's been published. I don't worry about it. We all have errors, but can still communicate. So, my apologies if you've found very many errors in my posts, and they've disrupted your experience of reading.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember ever finding a mistake in one of your posts and I always enjoy reading them. Keep up the good work.
DeleteHa! They've been there. But then, maybe that's the lesson in this. Others don't notice our errors as much as we do ourselves.
DeleteSometimes one of my typos will be an actual word, so spell check doesn't catch it. Other times, I'll be editing my own writing and change a sentence, only to leave an odd word in there that doesn't make sense. I do think I've gotten lazy with spell check. I remember in school, trying to proof my own papers for spelling errors. I found proofing my own writing to be a really difficult thing to do.
But glad my mistakes aren't huge and glaring to anybody but me.
I can totally relate to everything you said. I think most of my errors occur when I am changing my wording. Also, I used to be a champion speller back in the days before spell check. I am not a good speller now. Oh well, there are pluses and minuses to everything.
ReplyDeleteI do this too! The biggest mistakes always seem to be the ones I see after sending the story to the editor, or the cover letter to the potential employer...
ReplyDeleteLuckily, this blog does not involve any of the ways I make income. If it did, I don't know if I would be so quick to tell myself to get over it.
DeleteI too have problems with finding my errors after clicking the publish button. It's frustrating because I don't want my posts to look like they are being written by an illiterate, but that's me. I try to proofread, but just like in accounting class I know how I expect it to read and miss mistakes. If you overlook mine, I'll overlook yours :-)
ReplyDeleteI think you're right. After you look at a post a couple of times, you automatically correct for mistakes because you know how you want it to read. Also, I will be blind to any mistakes you make.
DeleteJust for that I have nominated you for the 7 things about me award :-) No seriously I had that planned before you agreed to look past my mistakes.
ReplyDeleteHere are the rules.
1. link back and thank the person nominating you
2. list 7 things about yourself. It can be anything.
3. Nominate 7 other people.
I think we tend to be way more critical of our own posts than of other people's. I try to avoid reading mine after posting because I always seem to find mistakes. I have never noticed any mistakes in your posts anyway :)
ReplyDeleteI think it's unanimous. We notice our own mistakes more than others.
DeleteIf I waited until I'd proofread everything to perfection on my blog, I'd never get round to publishing any blog posts! I reverse edit all the time!
ReplyDeleteI don't know that my posts ever feel easy (so I'm jealous that yours sometimes do), but I think of it as a labor of love. It can be hard, but it is ultimately very satisfying.
ReplyDeleteSatisfying. Now that's a good word. A friend asked me if I wrote a blog because it was therapeutic. I said no because I don't write about serious things. She asked me if it were fun. I said no, not in the true sense of the word like eating ice cream or a fun game. I told her I liked the challenge it gave me because sometimes my work isn't very stimulating. However, I should have told her that overall, it is satisfying.
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