Sunday, March 16, 2008

A little red ink, if you please.

I'm an editor. It's a big part of who I am - an obsessive character trait I carry with me in all my travels. I'll edit anything and everything I read - from a bumper sticker on a car to a novel to a research paper. In most cases, I don't even realize I'm doing it until I start reaching for my red pen.

There's one thing I can't edit, though, and that's my own writing... the unfortunate problem with that is I'm not a very good writer. It's odd to me that I can get so hot under the collar when I see someone write "That is it's problem," but I can still come up with a sentence like "I have many favorite author's," without blinking an eye. What the heck is that?!!

Earlier today, someone mentioned to me that they read my blog. Since I haven't posted since September and, therefore, couldn't really remember the contents of my blog, I came to see what they had just read. I was horrified! Elementary grammatical mistakes were littered throughout everything I'd written! Misplaced apostrophes, the simplest words spelled incorrectly, omitted commas, sentences that made absolutely no sense at all - I'd have run out of ink if I'd tried to mark it up with my beloved red pen. I couldn't stand it, and I went through and edited the many mistakes that initially caught my eye, despite the fact that it's 2:30 in the morning.

If I could adequately convey to you the revulsion I feel about my misdeeds, I'd be a fine writer indeed. Hypocrisy is one of the sins I despise the most, so imagine how it feels for me to admit that the editor needs an editor.

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