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How to spot and not accept writing mistakes
By Ragini Werner of NEEDSer l Native English Editing Service
My Dad was a dancer. He taught ballet for much of his life, and even now he’s retired he can still rave on the topic of dance without hesitation, repetition or deviation for much longer than just a minute. Back in ye olden days, when I was a tiny wee thing tottering about in a tutu, I can remember my dear old Dad telling me: “If you make a mistake, make it beautiful.” He was usually advising me what to do when I fell off my tippy toe shoes in a concert put on by the Ludwig Werner School of Ballet. Note here the 'when' I fell, not 'if' I ever fell—Hyacinth Hippo in Disney’s Fantasia had nothing to fear from me. But seriously now, I think Dad’s advice is good in many situations, including the one writers find themselves in when they’re settling down to revise their own text. Every writer makes mistakes, even the best of all published authors, you can bet your fallen Archers on that. We’re only human, as the saying goes, and that counts for writers too. As that doyen of the one-liner, Robert Orben puts it: “To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so.” Which brings me to another aspect of making mistakes. I mean: being willing to shoulder the blame. It doesn’t matter if we make a mistake, so long as we fix it-–that’s what my Dad’s advice means. But if we can’t admit to making a mistake in the first place, we can’t fix it, now can we? So we need to develop the right attitude that lets us spot and not accept our writing mistakes, whether these be tiny typos or great bloopers in grammer. A writer's attitude is the secret to successful self-revision As writers, without the right attitude, we would find it hard to recognize that our work really benefits from self-revision. Always. Let’s face it, we writers are… notoriously… sensitive… especially about our newborn creations and believe me, as a professional 'righter of words' I know from first-hand experience just how hard it is–-in that first flush of creation–-to accept that your brainchild could be, just might be anything less than totally and utterly perfect, with all its Ps and Qs in the right places, all its I’s crossed and Ts dotted (the I’s have it). In just one wild draft. Without any mistakes whatsoever. No way! That's why we need the true writer's attitude. But this cool attitude needs time to develop so it’s wise to let your writing cool down first, poked into a drawer if needs be. Give yourself time to recover from that first wild rush--that infatuation with what you’ve just created that makes writing so addictive (some say it’s better than a soma holiday). It certainly pays to wait until you can be cool, calm and objective about your report--or article or story, whatever--because then you will be in stronger and better shape to start the needed revision. Go for it!
Ragini Werner is an English-language editor and copywriter living in the far north of the Netherlands. She runs the international business NEEDSer (Native-English Editing Service) from the comfort of her home office. As the 'Bashful Blagger' Ragini writes an occasional blog on writing, editing, language and life in the fast lane of freelancing.
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Contributor's Note
Huh? Did I really put down righter of words? Please pardon this pun (and all the others in this posting). Just couldn't resist this one, especially since I'm also a professional spotter of writing mistakes, i.e. both a 'writer and corrector' of words. ;-)
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Ragini always dons her thinking cap whenever she's correcting her own writing mistakes.
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