Do U Proofread?

I never submit the first draft of an article to Themestream. I don't see how anybody could. I write, read, rewrite, and read again. Through the miracle of word processors, rewriting is easy. I can't imagine having to do rewrites on a manual typewriter or, worse, with pen and ink.

Isaac Asimov could dash off Hugo-award-winning stories in a single morning, his first draft being so perfect that a rewrite was rarely necessary. Well, Isaac had an exceptional talent, writing at a level I can never hope to reach.

I never submit an article to Themestream on the day I write it. There is far too much chance of rubbish getting through. I need time to step back and look at the article objectively. So I've evolved a standard system for writing articles:

I write the article.
I read it and correct any errors. Sometimes I re-order sentences to make the ideas more coherent.
I save it and forget about it.
The next day, I read it again and correct any errors that I missed the first time. Sometimes I re-order sentences, for no apparent reason.
I convert the file to HTML to make the presentation more attractive. If the layout is particularly complex, I check it in two or three different browsers to make sure it's going to look acceptable.
I read the article again and correct any errors that I missed the first two times.
I submit to Themestream.
I read the live article on Themestream and quickly correct any errors that I missed the first three times.

With four proofreads, I should be fairly certain that the article is perfect.

Uh-uh.

I recently submitted an article, What Price Sunflowers, about Vincent van Gogh's paintings. Proofed it four times. Was perfectly happy with it.

I forgot the first rule of writing:

You can never proofread your own work.

It's true. You're too close to it. Even waiting a day isn't good enough. You know what the words are supposed to say. You see what you expect to see. So errors slip past you. Your brain simply doesn't register them as errors.

The article mentioned Vincent van Gogh. Several times. And every time, I wrote Vincent van Gough.

I'm so embarrassed.

I knew that was not the correct spelling, of course. Even if I had not known, I should have picked it up from the articles I had read, to research my facts, immediately before I began writing.

I could blame Microsoft Word for not spell-checking proper nouns. I could say it's because I wrote it at 3am, not a good time for higher brain functions. I could say it was a deliberate reader test. I could say it was part of my ongoing U joke with my American readers.

But the truth is, I had a momentary word-blindness. The kind of memory lapse that strikes us all. And then, no matter how many times I read the article, I saw what I expected to see.

The article was live, exposing my stupidity to the world, for 48 hours before one kind soul pointed out my error. I have no idea how many people read it in the meantime (under the new Themestream system, only registered readers are counted). It was at least several dozen. (Hey, you people, why didn't you say something?)

But every cloud has a silver lining. Embarrassing though it was, this episode gave me a chance to write this article and impart an important lesson to other aspiring writers out there:

Read your work. Re-read it. Read it again. Then get somebody else to read it. Then read it again.

Thanks for listening.

Footnote:

By remarkable coincidence, the person who pointed out my error was the first editor I worked with when I began my professional writing career twelve years ago.

She taught me everything I know about writing.

Twelve years later, she's still teaching me.

Thank you

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