Errors

As this blog is, in essence, my journal, I find it funny that I have so many who wish to correct it. You can even find conscientious editors suggesting incorrect edits for me to make. I wonder if they would appreciate me editing their blog, journal, or personal space? I tend to doubt it. I also find it interesting that I do not see these comments on the wide variety of blogs and similar personal spaces I read, no matter how many misspellings, grammar errors, or typos are there; so what is it about my blog that prompts people to put on their editor's cap?

I know Liza and I know she means well when she suggests edits. She is an incredible writer and I fully recommend you read her stuff. However, for as good a writer as she is, she makes an equal number of mistakes as I do and for the same reason; she doesn't have an editor reviewing what she posts and it is hard to edit your own work. Yet I can't remember ever suggesting as a comment on her blog that she correct her errors and typos. M, my wife, sometimes makes mistakes in her blog. She has asked me on occasion to correct mistakes. When I find them I tell her personally about the errors. I don't post the corrections on her blog.

For those who use the "Anonymous" tag, it is impossible for me to know if they are good, always mistake free writers. However, my own experiences as a writer makes me doubt it. I cannot learn if their blogs or journals are wildly inaccurate because they do not share who they are or where their blog is. Maybe they don't write at all and don't understand how hard it is to edit your own work?

I have stated at least three times before in this very blog that this is where I get out my thoughts and I make no excuses for my errors-- posts are frequently my way to get ideas and frustrations out of my head as well as to communicate with the world. While I am proud of being a damn good Technical Writer as a career, that doesn't mean I am going to take the same care here to have everything I write edited. And, since it is much harder to edit your own work without missing things, I make no excuses for the typos and grammar errors I miss.

My posts run the gamut from 2 am rantings to carefully crafted dissertations on subjects. Most often they are just dashed off thoughts and feelings on things that have just happened. Nearly all of them are topics about which I need to gain perspective and writing them down is one way I use to gain that perspective. I sometimes wince when I reread the posts with the most errors hours, days, weeks, and even months or years later. And I nearly always find changes or mistakes that I could correct. Yet I leave them as a show of how raw the writing was over the subject, or how emotional I was about a given event. Hell, one of my most grammatically challenged posts was partly what led M into my life; so there is something to be said for raw, emotional, grammatically challenged writing-- it could lead to marriage!

While I appreciate everyone's time and effort in correcting my mistakes, do not be surprised when I ignore them. I will continue to do the best I can to edit many of my posts-- and will ignore editing a certain type of post-- but I will also leave the errors I do make up there for all the world to see. It is one way I make this blog feel different from my job and it is another way for me to "keep it real."