Do you remember the posts about the errors in The Hobbit?  The original post was a challenge and the second post was a prompt to follow up.  So how did you go?  Did you find any in your edition?

Now I have been back through my copy and, ignoring the fact that I kept getting wrapped in the story again, this is what I found.  By the way my edition is the third edition written in 1996 and this was from the 10th impression done in 1975.  It’s a hard copy printed in the United Kingdom.

The reason I have stipulated the edition and print run is that your copy may well be different, however, in my edition these are the errors I found.

Page 158 …they grey very weary…

Page 169 …got out of his was as quick…

Page 239 …and thtat was pretty true…

In 1975 these were probably set using the print, glue, photograph, expose plate and print method as computers would not have been in common use if at all. (If I have got that wrong please let me know)

Spell checking and proofing would have been done by a couple of people who both read through the set pages, one reading out loud and the other following along and comparing what was said against what was actually printed.

I have actually done this job and it is very tedious, you can’t follow the story properly when you do this and nor should you.  You are comparing the printed word with the spoken word all the while attempting to find spelling mistakes and printing errors.  You often don’t get them all as you can see from the above.

These days spell checking should be done by the computer program you are using but you do have to be a bit careful.  Most software comes with USA spelling and grammer as the defaults.  If you are writing for a different audience then you must chage the default settings, it’s not hard.

Spell checking will not find the instances where you have used the wrong word, if it is spelt correctly, and many grammer checkers find this difficult as well.

The whole point of these three posts is to point out that you’re book doesn’t have to be perfect to sell well.  What it does have to do is to engage the reader on at least one level so they keep engrossed in your writing.  Focus your efforts on writing a good story and let the spelling and grammer fall where they may until you have finished it.

If you are going to write you have to write lots and often.  Have a look at thes posts on this site, most of them are reasonably long.  I haven’t done a word count on them but most would be in the 300-500 word range I suspect because I am too wordy and have trouble stopping when I get started on something.

If you then do a count of the number of posts here I probably have written a small novel since around December when thei really got started.  But I have also written posts and articles for other sites, put comments on other peoples blogs, written some manuals, done a bunch of coding on this and other websites so I guess that I have written possibly another small novel in that time as well if you just look at the number of words I have committed to the screen.

Perhaps I should have focussed on a single area and completed just one novel.  I guess the point is that if I can belt out a whole lot of badly written stuff, so can you.  The act of writing and reading will make you a better writer, don’t hold back. 

There is a saying in the motivational world, if it is worth doing it’s worth doing badly.  Don’t be afraid to write badly as the practice will help you get better.  If it is worth writing at all it is certainly worth writing badly at first and correcting it later.

Get writing.