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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Paris SUBTRACTION!!

It was pointed out to me by the eagle-eyed William White that my last post contained a GROSS GRAMMATICAL ERROR (gross both in the sense of HUGE and, for grammar-freaks like myself, disgusting) in its title.
Witness:

http://laurenoliverbooks.blogspot.com/2010/08/monday-writing-challenge-parisian.html

Obviously, this should read "...Paris EDITION," since I have no interest whatsoever in performing mathematical calculations while in France!

I am taking this incident of public humiliation to assert an important point about writing: always, always, always proofread your work. Then have someone else proofread it. This is especially important when you're submitting a novel to agents/editors for the first time. Your work will be read and reviewed by some underpaid, under-slept editorial assistant who has no doubt been out drinking in a bar until 2 a.m. and then had a bad fight with her boyfriend first thing in the morning about why he has drunk all the coffee (not that I speak from personal experience or anything...). The EA is LOOKING for a reason to put down your book, and throw it in the reject pile. Do not give her that reason in the form of a silly grammatical or spelling error.

I'll certainly be looking over my posts a little more closely from now on...!

2 comments:

Caroline Starr Rose said...

I once wrote on a student's progress report that she was a "great edition to the class." Thankfully, another teacher caught it before it went out.

Anonymous said...

i believe *the bloodshot eyed william white* would be more appropriƩ. perhaps i should pursue a career in the EA arts.
-william

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