Mistakes in blog posts

Yesterday when Bear read my blog, he noticed 2 mistakes; one was a word left out, the other a word spelled wrong.

*Slaps forehead*

It made me cringe because less than a month ago, I spelled a word in a post's title wrong.  Granted, mistakes happen.  Before posting, I copy and paste my blog preview into Word and spell check it. But spell check doesn't catch missing words, and for whatever reason, it didn't flag the word I misspelled in yesterday's post (I suspect it's a case of my being too quick to 'Add to Dictionary' at some point in the past). The mistake in my blog title happened because I didn't copy and paste the title over to Word that particular day.

*Slaps forehead again*

If you ever notice a mistake on my blog, whether it be a typo, a missing word, a factual error, a broken link, whatever, please feel free to tell me.  I'd much rather a reader tell me 2 hours after I post than my husband have to point it out 8 hours later.

Obviously, it is not my readers' responsibility to edit my blog posts for me; it is my responsibility to post blogs as error-free as I possibly can.  But pointing a mistake out by emailing the blog owner (as opposed to putting it in the comments — although I would still rather someone point it out in the comments than not at all) is a kind thing to do.

There is a published author whose blog is consistently riddled with spelling errors and typos. This turns me off to their work, and makes me feel they are careless at best, disrespectful of their readers' intelligence at worst.  I don't ever want to turn anyone — whether it be an agent, an editor, or a single reader — off from my work because of a mistake on my blog.  Because I'm certainly not careless.  In fact, I care very much.  But I'm not perfect, either.

What do you do when you notice mistakes on other blogs? Do you prefer people tell you if they spot mistakes on your own blog?

On pet peeves and mistakes

I am a good writer.

I know this to be true, and can say so without feeling like a jackwagon (my new favorite insult, thanks to that GEICO commercial), because nearly every teacher from elementary school up through college, an editor and an agent, and a regional newspaper editor have told me so. To me, this is the same as saying I'm white or I have green eyes.  It's a fact.

Now, whether I am a good novel writer (in which storytelling is just as or even more important than the writing), or whether I'm a good writer compared to JK Rowling or Stephen King or Neil Gaiman, I don't know.

But I do know the difference between you're and your, their, there, and they're, its and it's, and all those other writer pet peeves (which are not necessarily my pet peeves).

I know, and yet I still catch myself messing up. My biggie is using it's instead of its. It's (ha) like my fingers just love typing that apostrophe.

I've forgotten how to spell 'all' (I was trying to spell it out like it sounded... a-w-l in my slightly-Southern-tinged pronunciation).

My comma usage is far from standard.

And somehow, even though the writing community is one of the most welcoming and least catty I've been a part of, I'm surprised by the amount of Ugh! I can't believe they don't know that [insert writing mistake - or maybe not - here] I see.

And if you're guilty of this, don't feel like I'm aiming this at you. I'm not writing this to call out or tear anyone down. I'm sure I've been guilty of it at some point, too.

People have a right to their pet peeves. I have them, trust me. But it's important to remember that just because someone spells definitely "defiantly" or "definately" or says "for all intensive purposes" instead of for all intents and purposes or uses impact as a verb doesn't mean their there they're a bad writer.

(The above is not a poorly-concealed list of my pet peeves, by the way, but several more biggies I've noticed batted around the blogosphere.)

Just because someone uses commas wrong doesn't mean they're a bad writer.

Just because someone does something that makes you crazy when you see it in print doesn't mean they're a bad writer.

Just because someone uses just way too many times in a blog post doesn't make them a bad writer.

Just something I've been thinking about.

;)