Editing my manuscript... Finding a few stray typos, errors, comma drama. I've decided that I don't have to be a perfectionist in this regard. Sometimes the error is subjective. Sometimes the error is irrelevant. What I know is that most readers aren't editors or writing professors. There's a good chance they won't even notice the typo and those who do, maybe that says more about them than it says about you. After all, a few errors in a 100,000 word manuscript is statistically insignificant. One example... One of my writing professors said that I should search for all "that"s in my writing and work to delete them. "That" indicates a rookie writing flaw. So, for example... I wrote above: "I've decided that I don't have to be a perfectionist..." I could have just as well said, "I decided I don't have to be a perfectionist..." Or this one from above... "One of my writing professors said that I should search for all..." I could have just as well said, "One of my writing professors said I should search for all..."
One of my writing coaches said that I overused the word "and" and for me that was just her opinion. Of note, the spelling and grammar checker in WORD will not help you catch a lot of these types of issues. I said all this to say that with editing, at some point you have to know that you can probably never be perfect. I find peace in the fact that I found an error in the first 5 pages of a recent Dan Brown novel. Perhaps we should offer our readers a reward if they find a unique and legitimate typo? At some point YOU've got to be okay with some level of imperfection in your writing. I'm always almost there!
