Typos...

I've come to the sobering realization that my grammar stinks. I found this out by going through my previous posts and re-reading them in hopes of jogging my memory for a new topic to blog. Well, I got that new topic, after spending about two hours correcting simple words and phrases that I had obviously 'Fat Fingered' the first time around. So, today it's all about 'Typos'.

The word 'typos' is a strange word. I know it's short for typographical error but it kinda sounds like a Greek word. I even envision the Greek god Typos, god of all mistakes, errors, and fat fingers.

As I reviewed the past year or so of posts, the errors I found were mainly simple mistakes that the spell checker had failed to catch. Things like "their" instead of "there", "were" instead of "where", and the occasional run-on sentence. All simple, all common, and all of them making me feel as though I am definitely not smarter than a fifth grader.

My question is why did I make these simple errors? Surely after years of writing and blogging, all of the practice would have paid off and I could write error free. WRONG! And then I am reminded of why they place a spell checker on every word processing program. Heck, that's why they put an eraser on the end of every pencil too.

My friend Andy (an awesome writer), described it best to me when he told me that most times we are more concerned with getting our thoughts down before we forget them, and that we don't worry to much about the grammatical part of what we're writing. Sure, we use the best real-time grammar, spelling, an word choice we possibly can, but we are really more concerned with getting the main points, the guts of the work, in black and white. In my case, I write mainly about my daily life and what God teaches me along the way. So when I write, I try to put down what He has and is speaking to me as quick as I can, because I'm afraid I'll forget these divine thoughts if I don't. And, when we do anything quickly, you better believe there is a higher chance of errors.

Last night in our men's study at Church, my friend Gary (a professional writer) and I were talking about proofreading. He told me that he and a friend in Indianapolis proof each other's pieces prior to submitting them. But, he also told me that after one of his is published, he never fails to find something he would like to have changed or written a little different. I told him I can relate to this every time I skim through a few pages of my book and find some simple little thing that screams at me from the pages, begging me to revise it.

Bottom line is, I've got a long way to go before I am perfect. Actually, though I strive for perfection I know I will always fall short and there is nothing me, you, or Typos the Greek deity can do about it. I can aim small and miss small, but in the end, it's still a miss. Though my humanness is weak and far from perfect, I gotta' praise Him for His grace and the simple fact that I'm forgiven. That really is all that matters, and keeps me typing away...