Proofreading required

The life of a writer can sometimes be hard: long days searching for just the right words, inspirations which keep you from sleeping at night, and deadlines approaching a lot faster than the time becomes available with the everyday chores we all must do.

But one task which a competent writer has to do is proofread his work. Now I’m fussier than most because I will come back into posts I’ve already put to bed if I reread them and see something amiss. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible with e-mail and today I got one with a definite sin of omission because it told me:

… I hope see you there.

Now I know that may seem very picayune, but when the e-mail is a campaign e-mail from one of those running for statewide office, I think I should demand a lot more attention to detail. This is particularly true when one of this candidate’s staffers can be placed in the “loose lips sink ships” category. (Perhaps he wrote the e-mail without looking as well.)

While I’ve not worked for a political campaign, I understand what deadlines mean and there’s times I rush to get things completed, too. But I make time to proofread, and thirty extra seconds looking at this announcement would have saved a lot of embarrassment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take a minute and proofread this before I get it out by my self-imposed midnight deadline. And I’ll have you know I changed three words and added these last three sentences to help get my point across. (Note to political campaigns: I work at a fair rate.)

With that, I can now rest.