Thanks for the advice!!

@Justin: I don’t agree with you or Scoble. Maybe it depends on how compulsive you are about accuracy. Everybody makes mistakes now and then, sure, but it is the duty of the writer (as blog publisher) to minimize these. The blog is for public consumption, no? You don’t see hard-copy publishers saying, “Oh, a typo here and there is OK, it makes it seem like real people are behind it.” No, they hire proof-readers, etc. to make sure the final product is as professional as possible.

Having said that, if you go to my blog, you’ll find lots of spelling “mistakes” and weird turns of phrase. That’s the persona of the writer…a phelonious misspeller. But you have to know the rules to break them.

When I first started out writing I would write something, and just post it. Now I take a few days to go back over it, re-write, edit, do a final revision, then post.

Like others, I tend to do an initial draft and then come back to the post once or twice before pushing it live. Often this occurs over the course of just a few minutes – sometimes the gap is just long enough for a “freshen up my coffee” break.

But very often I get inspired to write about lengthier topics in spells. So I draft 2 or 3 (or more) entries and stick them in a “Future Posts” temp folder. Then I revisit & refine them over the course of a few days or even a couple of weeks.

Then when I hit a dry spell, I pull one of those nuggets out and set it free. Sometimes I’ve let a future post simmer long enough that its lack of value becomes apparent so I end up just pitching it or rehashing it into something alltogether different.

Anyway, one other blog editing tip to add. I usually read my post backwards as one final proofing step. Not literally backwards but rather the last sentence and then the second to last sentence etc. I’ve found that prevents me from sticking words during a forward proof read that just aren’t there. It’s very easy to inject words into your own work because you meant it to be there but it just isn’t.

One point to make on the proof-reading, though. While it’s immensely important, try not to go too nuts. You don’t want to seem like a robot. In Robert Scoble’s book, Naked Conversations, he argues that the occasional typo is OK as it keeps the conversation real and lets the reader know that there is an actual person on the other end. The blogging community can be so skeptical as it is, the occasional mistake can lend some credibility.

“The darndest thing about blog content is that you can have the most amazing post in the world, but if you can’t create mildly decent sentences with proper spelling and grammer, nobody’s going to listen to you.”

Can you spot it?

Why is it that there’s never a piece of paper around when you need one?