With this writing lark, I’m sort of at a stage where proofreading comes into play. I’m pretty good at proofreading. I’ve spent the past several years sub-editing posts on Sidepodcast to check for spelling and grammar and that kind of thing. I’ve spent plenty of time reading and re-reading posts on here to make sure they at least flow, if not make some kind of sense. I even spent a couple of months professionally proofreading, which was very enjoyable, if exhausting.

This is a different kettle of fish altogether! I have mostly written the thing and now I have to go over and read it all again, even though I know how it ends! Tedious!

It’s not like I am kidding myself that I don’t need to do this. It surprises me how many changes have to be made. Not so much spelling because Word and Pages are pretty spectacular at correcting that for you. It’s more repetition of words, and for some reason I’ve got into the habit of littering my text with “though” and “then” as if I’m making some kind of speech.

For example: “It was not for nothing, though, and blah de blah.” “Onto the next thing, then, and…”

Stop doing that!

It makes me wonder, because obviously as you are writing, you mean what you are typing, otherwise you wouldn’t type it. But reading back - particularly reading out loud - can highlight some glaringly obvious things that were completely invisible before. How does that happen? It’s a fascinating process.

I definitely prefer the writing to the proofreading, and that is saying something.