Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) engages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement, or anything really, about their writing. A different question is posed each month as a writing prompt. Answering it is optional. For January, the question is: ““Being a writer, what frustrates you most when reading other people’s books?”
This amazing, supportive group of writers was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Today, the co-hosts are Ronel Janse van Vuuren , J Lenni Dorner, Gwen Gardner, Sandra Cox, and Louise – Fundy Blue.
My answer to the question
I have little free time to read books, so I am pretty picky about the ones I start and have every intention to finish them. I am also a tad stubborn and hate giving up. So, I never actually dismiss a book. What bugs me most are typos. I find them in every book, even bestsellers, and for some reason (my A-type personality, my background as a teacher?), they annoy me. My eyes are always drawn to them and I have an inexplicable need to fix them. It’s hard to be a perfectionist! ????
But here’s the rub… The irony… The contradiction… The frustration… I produce typos and grammatical inaccuracies myself! Yet, I don’t find those, because I’m too familiar with the content. If there’s one thing I learned from publishing my own book, it’s that EVERYONE makes those mistakes. And that they are difficult to find, even by professionals. After many rounds of editing and proofreading, Plunge, as it stands right now, published and all, still has three typos in it! Anyone up for a game? One is in the epilogue… It’s so hard to be a perfectionist!
My book news
Since my travel memoir, Plunge – One Woman’s Pursuit of a Life Less Ordinary, has been published (see last month’s post), I had to change the heading of this section from “My book progress” to “My book news.”
