The envelope please.

Rip. Swish.

The winner of the most typos ever found in a single manuscript goes to….Shari  Elder.

Cheers, hoots, and silent prayers of gratitude whispered by those not chosen for this esteemed award.

Welcome to week 4 of the Marketing for Romance Authors 52 week blog hop challenge.  Each week, a lovely group of romance authors blog on a common theme. Visit them all.

As you may have guessed, the topic this week is common writing mistakes.   I, of course, make them all. My aging eyes paired with screens that get ever smaller is match made in hell.   Add to that cocktail an ability to type fast, and you have the typo-riddled manuscript. I simply don’t see the errors.

At work, I have access to a Public Affairs department packed with cracker jack copy editors, my bosses insist I use. (Yes, I’ve had my documents and emails slapped a few times, the mistakes were so glaring).  I’m glad I have them.

When writing for myself, I have to get a few readers, and I slow down, work carefully, and clean my glasses often.  I don’t get the all, but I try.  Hard and often. I also take breaks for my eyes and look at alternative images. Here’s one.  Nice, he?

Having said all that, I do have a few common mistakes my writing editors zing me for.  I’ll list them for ease.

  • Those dreaded wandering body parts (eyes drilling, skating etc..).
  • they’re, their and there. I know the difference, but when I’m typing quickly, I frequently use the wrong one.
  • Capitalization or is it capitalization.
  • I write all my thoughts down in a single sentence, not stopping to breath, sitting very still, my hands flying across the keyboards, heart punching through my chest.  In other words, the run on sentence, as I’m rushing to get the stuff out of me and onto the page.
  • I repeat words when caught in the flow of writing. I repeat words that affect me.

So, of all of these, which one do you share?

Check out all the other authors participating on the challenge here.

If you want more information on the blog challenge, check it out here.

 

2 Replies to “They’re there #MFRWauthor #amwriting”

  • I’m right there with you! I wish I could think of things for eyes and body parts to do besides “drill into her” or whatever. I get the concept, but sometimes what bogs me down the most in my writing is stopping to figure out an adjective or trying to find another word so I’m not repeating myself. Maybe the cutie in the pic can come to my place and help me out, lol!

    • I know! The challenge with wandering body parts is that we use those phrases when we talk, so they find themselves in our writing. I truthfully don’t think they are all that bad, and how much rewriting I have to do depends on the editor. Like most things. Thanks for dropping by.

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