I know many of you who follow me on here don’t live in Britain so may not know of the Writing Magazine which comes out every month. I’ve subscribe to it for many years now and find the addition inter magazine Writers’ News helpful because it tells you about up and coming competitions, writing markets and subscribers’ news.
In this month magazine, a miscellany article with the heading ‘Spelling it out’ caught my attention. In it, the author and Financial Times Columnist Lucy Kellaway , confessed to having problems with spelling mistakes, or typos.
My heart went out to her, knowing just where she is coming from because I suffer from the same problem. Lucy goes on to explain that she admitted on the BBC online magazine to ‘having a flair for typos’ and not getting any better with experience- nor with the help of spellcheck. She went on to explain, because she know she has a problem, she helps herself by printing out her article and reads them on paper when checking through her work.
This is what I find helps me too.
Lucy said she was cheered when she read an article in Wired saying we make typos not because we are dim, but because we are clever.
‘Writing is a sophisticated job and our brains focus on the structure, the sentences and phrases, leaving the close-up work to be done on autopilot. Afterwards we are programmed to read only what we think we have written, not what we actually have.’
After reading the article ‘Spelling it out’, I understand why we are told to get someone we trust to read through our work, and why publishing companies and newspapers have editors. 
Like Lucy, I’m pleased to know I’m not as dim as I thought I was 🙂
So if you find any typos here just remember I’m clever… LOL
Have a great day & happy writing to you my equally clever followers.
Paula R. C.
I empathise as I constantly refer to one of several dictionaries to check my spelling, and I generally try to proof read anything I write the next day.
Thanks, and to you too. xx
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