write « Robin Writes

When I was little, like three, four years old, I decided I wanted to write books. I took tiny pieces of paper, Scotch-taped them together, and “wrote stories.” My grandma thought it was cute. When I was about eight years old, I saw a TV commercial for Gone With the Wind—it was coming to theaters and the pageantry caught my imagination, so I asked Grandma if we could go.

She said of course, since that’s pretty much what she always said if I asked for something, although I didn’t do it often. The only caveat was that I first had to read the book. All 1000-plus pages of it.

So I did. I’m sure there were many things I didn’t understand, because, if you haven’t read the book but only seen the movie, you’re missing out Scarlett’s other two children and a host of interesting characters. But I read that book, and I got to see the movie afterwards.

Over the next decade, my scribblings evolved a bit and I submitted short stories to a few magazines—collecting rejection slips, naturally—and I worked on school newspapers and took a summer journalism class. I also kept a diary for some time; a very 1970s thing to do, it seems.

About seven years or so ago, I started writing professionally. Like, you know, for pay—pretty exciting, even though the topics were often boring and mundane. But at least I brought in a few dollars here and there.

And by the time that market dried up, so to speak, I had eaten that fateful salsa late one night and had a dream about a twenty-something young woman kicking butt and taking names . . .

That was Abby, of course, and so her story began: REDUCED was born.

A typo is when you hit the wrong key—hence the word “typo,” short for “typographical error.” It could even be because you—one time—typed the wrong word in a manuscript, such as “to” for “too.” It happens.

When it comes to social media, though, I expect the writer to make that correction as soon as possible. It’s a little different than going through an entire manuscript; sometimes those just don’t appear. And I mean one time, not continuously.

See, if you consistently use the wrong word, to me that means you don’t know the CORRECT word. As a writer, you should. It’s part of your trade, your art, whatever you want to call it. Just like a carpenter would be expected to know how to use a hammer and saw—you, the writer, should know how to use words.

Don’t say, “Excuse the typos.” Have some pride. FIX them.

Some authors swear they don’t “see” errors when they read; they’re caught up in the story. I have to say, I’ve NEVER been so caught up that I miss repeat mistakes. And it detracts from my experience as the reader—any distraction from the story will, in my opinion, and should, lower the rating given to a book.

Maybe it’s word usage; maybe it’s misspellings. Maybe a hyphen instead of an em dash. Maybe a word repeated not only throughout the book, but used in sentences that are in close proximity. That’s what editors are for—to catch all this stuff.

But the author must take responsibility too, first and foremost. After all, in a professionally published book, the editor isn’t listed by name. It’s the author’s book.