The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. I just learned about this fun group from Shannon Lawrence, who is a fellow writer and blogger. Just the title of the group screamed that I needed to check it out. This group was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh so writers could virtually gather to express their thoughts about writing. It looks intriguing so I have joined in.
Our co-hosts today are Christine Rains, Dolarah @ Book Lover, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Yvonne Ventresca, and LG Keltner!
The question for this month is: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing? Let’s take a look at these one at a time because each one raises a different set of Pet Peeves for me.
READING: When I read a book that has gone through all of the gyrations to reach publication I have high expectations. My number one issue is misspelled words. I can accept a couple, especially in a manuscript of 100,000 words, but when I see multiple instances of spelling errors my hackles start to raise.
A manuscript goes through the mill before publication, and if an author has done due diligence it would have been seen by the author, spell check, critique groups, beta readers, editors (line and content), publishers, early prints, and then reprints. By the time a book is into the mainstream it should not have spelling errors.
Editing: When I’m editing my own work my pet peeve is that I’m too hard on myself. I do endless comparisons of my work to great writers I aspire to write as well as. I remind myself that they have their creative greatness and I have mine. If I find myself being too hard on me, I set it aside and come back later when I’m not thinking of a Jane Austin novel.
WRITING: In this area I tend to not be too hard on myself. The entire process of writing is, in of itself, a process. Like all writers, I start with an idea then progresses through a vast journey of discovery. When I first started to write I thought, “This will be easy. I just put words to paper and, voila, a book appears.” I laugh at myself. Just getting started was a huge learning curve, and today I continue to learn my craft. If I had to name one thing that is difficult for me it would be to write everyday. Getting in a few days a week is a thrill, and I hope one day life will allow me to write daily.
As a reader, what are your Pet Peeves?
#IWSG
@TheIWSG
arbitrarydustbunnies 
I am definitely seeing a trend in what irritates us writer-types! None of us is very patient with typos and misspellings.
Writing every day is hard, especially if you have a day job. A few days a week is good. Maybe you could set a weekly word goal when drafting (so much harder to quantify it when you’re editing), and see what it takes to get there. Mostly I just think it’s important not to leave the book for too long at a stretch, or you lose continuity. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.
Great suggestions Rebecca, thank you. I have tried the word count and I failed. What seems to work the best is to celebrate the words I do get down. That way I have many happy occasions…some big, some small.
I don’t mind a few misspelled words here and there. What really irritates me is when you get halfway through a novel and realized the author forgot to point out that all of the main characters are all cat people (or maybe just cats) with tails and claws. Not that it was a big reveal with hints or anything; it apparently just didn’t come up for some reason in the previous hundred pages.
This only happened to me once, mind you, but once was enough.
IWSG August
Oh my. I don’t think I’ve ever run into that type of problem, but if I did I would have to stop reading it.