Why You Need to Edit Yourself

Or, full title, "Why You Need to Edit Yourself -- Even When Writing Your Facebook Statuses."

Today I finished reading the very funny and terrifically honest autobiography of one of my favorite actresses, Jane Lynch. The book was so good that I felt the need to pimp it out on Facebook.

But guess how I (mis)spelled her name. Let's just start by noting how close together the U key and the Y key are on a keyboard. Particularly a phone keyboard. On which I may or may not have been typing on the train while wearing thick winter gloves.

That's right: Jane Lunch. Love you, Jane! Have your people call my people and we'll do lynch!

Commonly Mispronounced Words

For your amusement (and, possibly, education):

10 Words You Mispronounce That Make People Think You're an Idiot

I totally agree with all of those, especially "expresso." I will never forget training, when I was 19, for my summer job at the cafe inside a Barnes & Noble. My co-worker who was training me began by explaining how to tamp down the "expresso" so that each shot would pour correctly. "And then we discard the used expresso here," she would say. I kept flinching throughout the training; she probably thought I had a neurological disorder.

They Say I'm Crazy... I Really Don't Care...

Correction... I agree with all of the mispronounced words in that article except "prerogative." I have never, literally never, heard anybody pronounce this word any way except "purr – ogg – uh – tiv". If anybody actually pronounced the first syllable "pre," I think they'd sound pretentious. (I also think "can – da – dett" sounds tons more pretentious than "can – uh – dett", but that may be due to my growing up in the midwest where nobody pronounces the first d in candidate.)

I remember asking my mom how to spell "prerogative" when I was a kid. My seventh grade pom-pom squad was doing a dance number to Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" and I needed something to write on the label for the dubbed tape that I was going to practice to at home (and yes, I did just admit all that in public... I say OWN IT, BETCHES!).

Anyway, Mom didn't know how to spell it. So we looked it up in the dictionary, but to our surprise, we couldn't find it. We looked it up under P-E-R, then P-U-R, then P-I-R. Then, in disbelief that we hadn't already found it under one of those spellings, we looked under P-A-R and P-O-R. Nada. It was ages before we figured out that it begins with P-R-E. Because NOBODY actually pronounces it like that.

If I'm wrong, do set me straight. But it seems impossible that I could have traveled the world and reached the ripe old age of 35 without hearing "pre – rogg – uh – tiv" if it is indeed as correct as Mr. Justin Brown (author of the above article, and "writer and artist living in Virginia") seems to think it is.

Poem: English Pronunciation

This poem makes me feel so incredibly sorry for the poor schmucks who have to learn English as a second language.

English Pronunciation
by G. Nolst Trenité
(as seen here)

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Accuracy vs. Speed in Online News

For shame, Associated Press. For shame.

Those who got their early on were able to retrieve their frightened children, but some who arrived later found the street outside the school lined with squad cars and blocked off. (From a news story published today)

Naturally this is not the only error ever made in an online news story. Not even from reputable news outlets like the AP.

And it's not surprising. The 24/7 demand for news leaves little, if any, time for proofreading. I'd wager that every single news story published on the web right this minute contains at least one error somewhere.

We value speed more than accuracy in the world of online news. I'm guilty of it too. I find myself getting annoyed if my L train is delayed and I can't immediately go online and find out why. Never mind that if someone actually did report it that fast, it would most likely be an inaccurate report, since only Superman could possibly have had enough time to gather all the facts.

We are the McDonalds generation, after all. We've proven many times that we'll take fast and cheap over high-quality. But junk news is like junk food. You are what you consume. Take in too much of it and it throws your whole system out of whack. Then if you're smart, you'll back off the crap and take in only the good stuff for a while. And if you're not smart, then you'll have the mental equivalent of indigestion. I'm not sure what that would look like, but I know I don't want it.

How Writers Sabotage Themselves

This is great advice, and a fun read.

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing

It caused me to laugh out loud on the train this morning, making all the other passengers stare at me. Everybody, that is, except the dude who was blasting Michael Jackson's "Bad" through his earbuds so loudly that it became the soundtrack for everyone's commute. I surrender, buddy, you are just too BAD for me.

In other news, I believe I'm getting old. My first thought when I read the article's headline and first few paragraphs was "Really? Must we have all the F-bombs?" Goodness knows I've dropped my share of F-bombs in my life, so I don't know whether it's old age or parenthood that's making me allergic to them now.

Making the Time to Be Creative

Oh, my poor neglected blog. Did I really go through all of November without a single post? Le sigh.

Which brings me to today's topic: Finding the time to write.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The older I get, the busier I get, it seems.

Actually, it's not even about being busier. It's about having more things in my life that use up all of my brain power. There's my full-time job. Then there's family and friends, with the face time and correspondence that those require. There's my husband, who I don't spend nearly as much time with as I'd like to. Then there's my two-year-old -- enough said. Then there's paying a whole family's bills and keeping on top of the zillion and one of life's logistical considerations.

After all that, most nights I'm too drained to do anything but read Facebook posts, play inane computer games, or scramble to get everything ready for the next work day followed by collapsing into bed.

The Role of Self-Discipline

At one point in my life, I was a single and carefree person in my mid-20s. I worked full-time, but other than that, my energy was my own, for the most part. And yet I still wasn't doing as much creative writing as I would have liked.

I theorized that maybe it was my job (editorial manager and wearer of 10 different hats at a small company) draining my creative energy. At one point, while between jobs, I accepted a position as an executive assistant. I thought maybe doing something fairly un-creative for a living would free up my creative energy so that I'd be more inspired to write during my time off.

The new job didn't make any difference. I would still come home in the evenings and do what I had been doing: going out with friends, or playing games, or calling people on the phone, or just reading books.

That's when I realized what the real issue was. I wasn't making the time for my creative endeavors. I wasn't being disciplined about it at all. I was just waiting around for inspiration to strike. In retrospect, I suppose I was hoping two things: (1) that inspiration would strike, and (2) that the strike would coincide with a period of time that my mind was not otherwise occupied with something else, so I'd have nothing stopping me from running to the computer and typing it all out.

It took me a long time to realize that kind of coincidence almost never happens. If I want to write, I will have to be disciplined and make myself sit down and write, even if I'm not in the mood.

MAKE the Time... Because It Doesn't Make Itself

The more I read about successful people, the more I realize what most of them have in common. Not good looks, or lots of money, or sheer dumb luck, but the fact that they worked their asses off toward a goal. Whatever it was they wanted, they were deliberate about doing whatever it took to get it.

Persistence is highly underrated. It sounds so dull: just keep chugging along. But I think it's actually the key to everything.

Maybe it's my vocabulary holding me back here. Creativity and discipline sound like such polar opposites, don't they? One term brings to mind a freebird bohemian who lives with other artists and devotes herself to her craft any time of the day or night. The other term calls up soldiers, dressed in identical uniforms, obeying commands given by someone else, eating and sleeping and breathing on a strict schedule. They almost sound mutually exclusive.

Yet, if your mental energy is as occupied as mine is, but you have a strong desire to do creative work, discipline is vital, if only to produce the basic tool required for creative work: free time. And that's what I have been lacking. I haven't made the time.

I got together with a friend for lunch a couple of weeks ago. Like me, she loves to write. But her life is filled to the brim with a more-than-full-time job, family, and an unemployed live-in boyfriend who demands a lot of her energy. While we were chatting, we realized that we have the same problem. When free time lands in our laps, it's such a relief that we can't resist using that time to unplug and just relax. But if we are going to write more, we have to set aside some time. And that's a completely mental exercise. It's not going to happen on its own.

We decided the two of us should get together once a week and sit at a bookstore (or coffee house, or whatever - the location doesn't matter) and do nothing but write. Having a date with the other person might keep us accountable so that we don't slack off and fill up that time with Angry Birds instead. We have yet to schedule our first such meeting. I hope we do. No, wait -- hoping it will happen is what got me here in the first place. I need to just do it. Pick a time and place and do it, with no excuses.

People Who Can't Be Bothered to Communicate Clearly Online

My pet peeve of the day: People who can't be bothered to communicate clearly online.

If you've spent significant time in any particular online community, you've noticed that people typically fall into two categories:

1. People whose writing is easy to understand because, for the most part, it's error-free and written clearly
   
2. People whose writing is difficult to understand because it's riddled with spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation, run-on sentences, etc.
   

I should probably add a third category: "People whose writing would be clear except that it's full of hilarious typos produced by their iPad/iPhone autocorrect feature."

Here's What I Mean

These are not the most egregious examples, but they give you an idea:










Why Bother

My basic question is this. If you're participating in an online community, chances are it's because you want people to read what you wrote.

If you care about people reading what you write, why wouldn't you care about taking basic steps to make sure your message actually gets through? Seems contradictory to me.

Don't Waste My Time

Seriously, I'm busy enough. I don't have time to spend extra minutes, or even seconds, trying to decipher what you were trying to say. Heck, I have days where even milliseconds seem too long to waste on somebody who is making ME do all the work to read THEIR message.

If my brain finds that it's getting stuck in a quagmire of misspellings and unclear meaning, my busy brain tends to skip right over the text and find something else that's easier to read.

Don't get me wrong. One or two typos doesn't make a difference. Everyone makes one or two typos. I bet there are at least that many typos in this blog post. I'm talking about the posts that have egregious and/or frequent offenses to clear communication.

For instance, I was reading one day where a woman was complaining about her husband. She wrote, "He never abused me fisically, but..."

My brain read that as abused me fiscally. In other words, I thought she was saying that this guy had never stolen from her, or gambled away her life savings, or spent her money frivolously. I had read down another three or four sentences before I realized that she'd meant to say physically. I then had to go back and reread the entire paragraph now that I knew what she meant. And that, folks, is what I simply don't have time for in my life.

The Worst Part

The worst part is that, because I am so busy, I find myself falling into the trap of not editing myself when I've made a minor typo. I'm so tempted to just move on because I know it's minor, and let my readers decipher it because I know it won't take them very long.

But that is how it begins, my friends. And then it's a long downward spiral into being That Person. The one whose stuff nobody bothers to read because you'd have to chop through the errors with a machete like Indiana Jones hacking his way through the jungle.