proofread

What’s In a Title?

Fandango8 Comments

I have an apology to make. I occasionally forget to change the title of my posts before publishing them. It happened again today. Let me explain.

I blog exclusively from my iPhone. When I write a new post for a prompt I frequently respond to, I go to my last response to that prompt, and then tap on “Duplicate.”

That brings up a draft version of my previous response to the prompt. For example, this morning I duplicated last week’s response to Esther Chilton’s Weekly Writing prompt. I had titled that previous week’s post, “Saloon Showdown.” Once I had it on my screen, I removed the photo block and each of the text blocks. I am left with a virtually blank page. So far, so good, right?

Then I write the new post for the current week’s writing prompt. I save a draft, I proof read it, make some edits, save it, add my new image, update my post settings, and when it all looks good, I save it and publish it. Done and dusted.

I go away from WordPress to do real world stuff for a bit. I come back a few hours later and check my notifications and I say to myself, “Oh shit.” Why? Because people have liked and commented that day on a post titled “Saloon Showdown,” which was the title of last week’s prompt.

So after all that effort I put into writing a new post where I intended to change the title to “Combustible,” I ended up forgetting to change the goddam title to the post. How dumb is that? And then I retitle and republish the post with the new, correct title. How confusing is that?

So sorry about that, folks. And in case none of you even noticed my faux pas, well, please ignore this post.

Sunday Poser — Proofread, Edit, Repeat

Fandango11 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

How many times do you read and edit your posts before publishing them? Do you have to correct an error after you have posted a blog post?

I would say that I proofread and edit my posts at least two or three times — and more for longer posts — before I hit Publish. And yet I still occasionally end up with typos and misspellings on my published posts. Why? Because the eyes often see what the brain expects them to see, not necessarily what they are actually seeing.

I also try reading my drafts out loud to see how they sound and if the sentences as written make sense. That sometimes leads to major rewrites, including moving paragraphs around to improve the flow.

And yes, even with my best efforts to make my posts perfect — at least from a grammatical, spelling, and punctuation standpoint — some still get published with errors. When that happens, all I can do it is go in and fix whatever needs to be fixed.

And I hope that my fellow bloggers understand and forgive me. After all, unless you’re using some generative AI engine to write your posts for you, we are all only human — and to err is human .

Blogging Insights — Edit, Edit, Edit

Fandango22 Comments

For this week’s edition of Blogging Insights, Dr. Tanya wants to know about our blog post editing habits. She asks…

Do you edit your work before posting it?

I edit the shit out of my posts. I draft them, I proofread them, I make changes, I make more edits, I proofread them with all the changes and edits, and I do that as many times as it takes to make my posts perfect. And yet, despite all of that editing and effort, I still find posts that I’ve published with typos, misspellings, grammatical, punctuation, and usage errors. If any of you who reads this post is interested in a job as a proofreader/editor, let me know. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to pay you. Sorry about that.

Apart from correcting typos and spellings, how much (if any) of a post do you change before you send it out in the world?

For my flash fiction posts, I don’t really do a lot of planning before I start drafting. I may have in my head a basic idea of what I want to write, but once I start writing, the posts seem to flow the way they want to, as if they have a life of their own and I’m just a vessel from which the words pour out. In fact, sometimes even I, the author of the post, am surprised by where it took me.

I try to read my drafts for clarity and for a logical or natural flow, and I often find myself moving around whole paragraphs, which I have to admit is easier to do using the block editor than it was using the classic editor (at least on the iPhone), in order to improve the flow. In some cases I’ll practically rewrite a whole post because, as I’m writing it, some other idea will occur to me that might result in taking what I was writing in a completely different direction.

So I guess my answer to Tanya’s question about how much I change of a post before finally publishing it is “a lot.”

Do you think that re-drafting a piece can “rob” it of its spontaneity?

Other than for Linda G. Hill’s weekly Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, I think, when it comes to blogging, spontaneity is far less important than a well-written, engaging, quality post. If you want spontaneity, go to your local improv venue.

#FOWC — Lessen Learned

Fandango21 Comments

A1C1B58E-C247-4AFF-ABBF-CD19591BE978Last night at midnight my time, I published today’s FOWC with Fandango One-Word Challenge. The word for today was “lessen.” But as several bloggers pointed out to me when I woke up this morning, the wording in my posted FOWC prompt read “Today’s word is ‘lesson.’ Not to be confused with yesterday’s word, “lesson.’”

What the hell, Fandango? Is the word for today “lessen” or “lesson”?

Let me assure you, it’s “lessen.” Or at least it was supposed to be, since yesterday’s word was “lesson.”

Oh how clever I thought I was being to create homophone prompts on consecutive days. But maybe too clever for my own good, perhaps.

In the end, though, I did learn several lessons from this experience.

  • Never publish a post when I’m just about to fall asleep
  • Always proofread my post at least two or three times, including reading it aloud at least once, before hitting “Schedule” or “Publish”
  • Lessen my dependence on autocorrect to catch my errors. Apparently autocorrect isn’t good with many homophones

Let that be a lesson for all of us.

I Need A New Mnemonic

Fandango10 Comments

6B42606A-5F18-4756-9521-24EC0BEF75AFThe first time I heard the word “mnemonic” was in music class back in junior high school. The teacher told us that she was going to give us a mnemonic that would allow us to remember the notes on the music scale. To this day, I remember that mnemonic, but I’ve yet to learn how to read music.

I think we could use a few new mnemonics. How about one to help me remember than the word “mnemonic,” starts with a silent m?

Or how about one to remind me to never write a post late at night on my iPhone while in bed and schedule that post to be published in the wee hours of the morning without having thoroughly proofed it?

Late last night I wrote a post for today’s “Song Lyric Sunday” prompt from Helen Vahdati. But it was still Saturday at around 11 pm when I finished drafting it, and I didn’t want it to be published until Sunday morning. Because, you know, the prompt isn’t “Song Lyric Late Saturday Night.”

So I scheduled the post, which was about the Steely Dan song, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” to be published at 3 am. When I woke up at 6:30 this morning, I checked to see if it had posted successfully. And there it was for all the world to see.

Except the title of the post was “Don’t Lise That Number.” Sheesh. I hate when that happens.

So I need a new mnemonic. Maybe PYPITTBHP, which stands for “Proofread Your Post, Including The Title, Before Hitting Publish.” That should be an easy one to remember.