What I Learned From Typos

I know it’s a strange idea, but Imma explain. You see if you’ve been reading along you know that I am a little bit of a Type A personality. I like things organized and orderly. I’m also a bit of a grammar nerd so I like my capitalization and punctuation and spelling correct. I would often catch little grammatical errors in some of the content I love to read and make a little mental red pen mark in my head. It was oddly satisfying, as my kids love to say. And then I began writing for public consumption.

I will first say that for almost any writer the idea of someone reading your thoughts is equal parts thrilling and terrifying. It takes a lot of courage to hit that publish button, to submit that manuscript, to write that letter to the editor. Sure, you want to express your thoughts and you want people to read them, but then people are going to read them—and probably have an opinion. The same applies with anyone who puts their creativity into the world—artists, chefs, designers—you want to share, but you want to do it in a non-vulnerable way. Unfortunately, that is not the way this works. Once whatever your creation is makes its way into the world, it’s fair game.

So, I obviously made it through the terror and decided to share my prose. I felt generally good about my foray into the published written word, until I read one of my pieces and found, you guessed it—MY OWN TYPO! I have to take a deep breath even writing about it. Of course, when I first saw it I was nowhere near a computer where I could immediately log on and correct it. I had to wait and think about it until I was finally able to rectify my error—the horror! I worked through it, the world didn’t end, and I chalked it up to my newness to the arena and the writing platform. Surely, everyone makes one mistake and there was mine so, check!

And then, guess what? I found another one! In a different piece! I just couldn’t believe that my crazy little editor, red-pen holding brain was allowing these things to happen. The second one wasn’t as shocking, but still stung. Until, you guessed it, I saw a third! Now here’s where it gets interesting. You see I read over everything before I publish it, but I don’t go back and look at it unless something makes me think to do so. So, by the time I found mistake number three I had quite a bit of stuff published. Although it was my immediate thought and earnest intention to go back and review every single piece with a fine-toothed comb—guess what? I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to or because it didn’t bother me, but because I simply didn’t have time that particular week. And then another week passed and I still didn’t go back and double-check all of my posts. Who am I?

The answer, I think, is that I’m someone that’s trying to evolve into a better version of herself. You see, I’d rather take an hour to write something new than go back and pick apart what I’ve already written. Even though I keep finding mistakes I also keep writing. I’d rather live knowing there are some mistakes in my work, than to stop putting it out there. I am never going to be flawless in anything I do, ever. Do I want to put out the best possible pieces for you to read? Absolutely. Do I strive to be as close to impeccable as I can be? All of the time. But that doesn’t mean it’s always going go happen. If I allowed myself to be ruled by the fear of something living on the interweb that I’ve written with an error in it, you guys, I’d never write anything again. And, that would be sad because I love to write.

So, I found myself asking the question “where else do I need to give myself a break?” The answer was lots of places. What about you? Where are you OK having a typo here and there? In what areas of your life do you need to maybe put the red pen away? We are all so hard on ourselves. Is that self-criticism preventing us from greatness? I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet it’s not helping us in any way. So, if you’re a little grammar nerd like me, scroll back and have at it! See if you can mark my stuff up—send me an email and let me know what you find. I will eventually go back and edit some things. But, for now, I’m going to move forward not backward. I’m going to press on knowing that I will leave mistakes in my wake. I encourage you to the same. Write on, mamas!

—–In the most delicious footnote to this, I’d like you all to know that after writing this little gem I actually published it to the WRONG site! That’s right, I messed up publishing the piece about messing up–if that’s not poetic, I don’t know what is!!–XOXO–Jules