You know, it just goes to show that you really can’t separate your own life, your own time, your own thought-processes from your historical research.

I was reading a book about the first two decades of the twentieth century (Pivotal Decades by John Milton Cooper), and came across this photo of General Pershing from WWI. You know, from around 1917-1918 or so?

See the man in the background?

Even knowing that this photo is over ninety years old, the posture was so familiar, so ever-present …

… My first thought was that he was texting someone or checking his email or tweeting, or something.

Yes, this makes me a momentary idiot. (Or at least, I hope it was just momentary.) But it also stopped me mid-chew as I ate my lunch.

How many other things do we take for granted just because they seem familiar to us … even when they’re not. I’m not sure what this soldier is doing–tying a knot? Checking a bullet? Folding a vital military order? Picking at a hangnail? Doing some obscure 1917 thing that has disappeared from usage in the last century? But I’m pretty confident in saying that he is NOT scrolling through music on his MP3-player. You know, unless he was a time-traveller who wasn’t paying attention to the photographer.

The point, though, is that no matter how hard we may try not to, we’re always going to perceive the world through what we KNOW.

History, religion, table manners … everything. We can know that Amish people don’t use electricity, but can we really understand what that means on a daily basis? We can know that a couple centuries ago, it might take months to deliver mail across country, but that seems impossible to people who mostly communicate instantaneously. And who can’t really imagine what a difference the telegraph made when it spread like wildfire around the world.

People say the only way to know another person is to walk a mile in their shoes–even if just in your imagination. The trick, though, is that those shoes aren’t going to fit, no matter how well they’re made, because your feet are used to the world you walk. Anything else is too unfamiliar for secure footing … and it’s when you make assumptions that you’re going to get into trouble.

Spammers, this is NOT the way to win my attention.

I think we can all agree that spammers are, well, annoying–like telemarketers used to be. They clutter up your comments and email with links for products and sites that usually have nothing to do with what you’re blogging about.

To be fair, some spammers at least try. They leave a legitimate comment about something you’ve posted–it’s just that their website link goes back to some site trying to sell you something. They’re at least trying to blend in, contribute, and aren’t being obnoxious about it. Spammers like that are okay in my book, like any poor wage slave just trying to make a living. Would I rather they weren’t passing out business cards in my living room, yes, but as long as they’re polite and don’t stand on the furniture, we can get along.

But, how about this comment I got recently? (Misspellings and grammar left untouched. The only thing I removed was the hyperlink because I’m not giving this person free advertising.)

Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again. Sick of getting low amounts of useless traffic for your website? Well i wish to let you know about a fresh underground tactic that produces me personally $900 on a daily basis on 100% AUTOPILOT. I could be here all day and going into detail but why dont you just check their site out? There is a excellent video that explains everything. So if your serious about producing quick hard cash this is the website for you _______.

Oh, where do I start?

It’s rude. First, while I don’t remember seeing the person’s name in my spam filters before, it’s possible their comment got past the Akismet wall and that I saw it in the spam filter and thought, “Yep, that’s spam,” and deleted it myself. But, that’s my job. I certainly hold the right to delete any comments I wish from my own site–especially if they’re spam.

What does this person think they’re gaining by outright scolding me for deleting their comment?

Oy, the nerve!

Which, of course, is the number one rule for selling anything, isn’t it? DON’T BE RUDE. You never know who might be a potential customer. You never know who has power and who does not. There are countless fairy tales with fairy godmothers in disguise, testing good intentions.

But more than that, a comment like this is essentially hijacking my site for their own purposes (and doing it nastily).

If there’s anything I hate more than spam, it’s RUDE spam. No way on earth I’m letting this person’s comment through now, ever.

So, who is this person hurting? Me? I don’t think so. They’re only hurting themselves by burning bridges. Am I likely to ever have let one of their badly punctuated comments slide? Probably not, but I’m happy to have well-intentioned conversations. If they had tried to fit in or been a little nicer, there wouldn’t have been an issue.

Why … I mean, seriously, WHY … do you suppose they thought a comment like that was a GOOD idea? “Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again….” They insulted me for my management, and insulted all of you, my readers, for allegedly leaving unhelpful comments.

Sheesh.

I wish I really were a fairy godmother in disguise so I could smite them with some nice, genteel curse like warts or bunions or something really inconvenient like chronic writer’s block.

Okay, thanks for letting me vent! Please come and leave REAL comments and share your opinions!

In the space of just a few days, I got three different magazine subscription offers, boom, boom, boom, and thought I’d share my thoughts.

First, this short-and-sweet offer from Dog Fancy. The main piece is what I think of as a “two-thirds” mailing, because instead of being 11″ long like a standard sheet of paper, it’s roughly two-thirds of, that, and simply folded in half along the perforation. The top half is the reply form and the bottom half is the “Summary of Benefits.” Though, the proportion for that seems all wrong–it looks like it was actually cut off, as if there should be a bottom third.

The only insert is a two-sided, color piece that gives quotes from readers on one side and a list of what the magazine offers on the other–all liberally decorated by pictures of cute dogs.

Personally, if it were up to me, I would have made the actual reply piece the one that was more colorful and eye-catching–that piece, the one people have to look at to actually subscribe is where the action is. The insert is nice, but my feeling is that you shouldn’t waste your color and extra-eye-catching design on the piece that’s going in the garbage later on–if it’s looked at all.

Second, a piece from New Jersey Monthly. This comes on a full-size sheet of paper with color illustrations of the magazine. The top two-thirds are the subscription offer, with the bottom third being the return-coupon. This means that, reading the piece, your eye ends at the spot where you take action–”Detach here and mail. Keep top portion for your records.” (Though, since that is ON the top portion, it makes it sound as if you’re detaching the top and mailing it back, but that’s really just quibbling.)

This offer came with not one, but three inserts–all the small, buck-slip size. A yellow paper telling me this is a limited-time offer. A glossy slip telling me about the special “A-to-Z Guide” that’s a premium for subscribing. Third, a little, glossy booklet with the fantastic headline, “Everything you want is in New Jersey … if you know where to look!” (I particularly liked how the font changed on the state name so that it matched the logo of the magazine. And I love the slogan–New Jersey gets too bad a rap, you know? )

If only because of the variety of inserts and the full-size of the main piece, I liked this mailing a little better. There was enough space for them to sell the magazine, and it didn’t leave me turning the page over looking for the rest of the “benefits.”

Third, this Knit Simple offer, which kind of blew the other two out of the water.

Firstly, it’s different. The offer IS the mailing piece. It’s not a piece of paper that was inserted into an envelope. Instead, it’s a fold-out, cardstock presentation. Two sides, four panels, lots of color, lots of pictures. Very eye-catching. It has a substantial feel in the hand, and it’s refreshing not to have lots of little extra pieces to lose or drop on the floor.

Not only that, it kind of looks like a magazine–it gives you a feel for the look of the magazine, full of color and knitted pieces, and since it’s all one piece, you actually look at all of it. The reply portion is a business-reply card ready to be detached from the innermost fold of the mailing. No envelopes to lose. Nothing fussy.

Of course, the caveat is that this kind of piece is going to be a lot more expensive to produce than something printed on a standard laser printer and stuffed in a standard envelope, but … it sure did catch my eye. And isn’t that the point?

I’ve been talking about the difference between gathering information for specific reasons or for general information, because sometimes you need to know specific things and sometimes you just want a big, general overview.

Digging into archives to dig out a specific name, a particular fact can be satisfying. Like a detective looking for clues, you know you’re looking for one, certain thing that can prove your hypothesis, or that you can hang your entire story on. It’s like solving a puzzle, and that can be very, very satisfying. But I find that there is as much pleasure in just doing general background reading. The beauty of that is—if you’re not trying to get to a specific place and are just meandering through—you’re going to see so much more, be open to new possibilities.

Okay, say you need to drive from New York to California, you’ve got two possibilities. You can plot the quickest route, climb in the car and head out to the highway and cruise at 70 m.p.h. for the next 10 hours with a couple rest stops. If you persevere, you’ll be there in a week.

Except, you will have missed the chance to see any sights on your way. The Great Lakes? Oh, was that the gleam I saw on the horizon on the way by? The Mississippi River? Well, it was dark when we crossed it. The Rocky Mountains? Oh, I remember those, the car really had to work to get up the incline.

Research is often blinkered—you get so focused on the one piece of information you need, you forget to look around.

Or, maybe you take the Tourist’s approach. You need to get to California, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime journey, so you decide to take advantage. You swing south to stop at the nation’s capital and then head down toward New Orleans, cruising along the Gulf Coast, stopping at the Grand Canyon, and generally just meandering your way across the continent, stopping when you see something interesting, and just taking in the view.

The beauty of reading for general background (as opposed to specific research) is that all the possibilities are open to you.

Just in the last week, I’ve found a few details that have made my creative juices flow.

• Like, for example, after WWI ended, Britain had 2 million more women than men, having lost so many soldiers in the war. One headmistress told her graduating class that only 1 girl in 10 of them would ever get married because there simply was no one left for them to wed; they would have to find something else to do with their lives. For a generation raised to believe that marriage and motherhood were the pinnacle of feminine abilities, that is a terribly frightening statistic.

…I immediately started to wonder, what do you do if you would like to get married but there literally is no one to marry? They’re not just hard to find or “the good ones are taken.” They are dead and gone, and your entire generation, sorry, is out of luck. But, in the meantime, you’ll excuse the rest of us if we look down on you for being a spinster and are reluctant to give you a job because the men need those, can’t you sit in a corner somewhere out of the way? All 2,000,000 of you?

• Or, I needed to know the name of the Governor of New Jersey in 1917 for my main character to shake hands with. It turns out that Walter Evans Edge—a man I’d never heard of—was governor not only during World War I but World War II as well. In between, he served in the U.S. Senate and was ambassador to France until the outbreak of WWII led him to re-enter politics.

… This caught my attention. He must have been a remarkable man. He must have done a wonderful job leading the state in World War I, if the electorate was willing to vote for him again 30 years later. So, why have I never heard of him? Is there a monument somewhere? A plaque? Something that honors a 70-ish year old man for taking up such a hard job again in a time of war? What kind of governor was he? What kind of man?

• Did you know that in 1917, King George V changed the family name from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha to the House of Windsor? This goes way beyond calling Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Your name defines you in so many ways–whether it’s the name you were born with, or one you married into (or away from). It’s not something most of us change lightly.

…At a time of war, when hundreds of thousands of young men (and some women) were being slaughtered … what made the British royal family decide to completely change their sense of identity? To cut themselves off from years of German-related pride? Kaiser Wilhelm I was the first-born grandson of Queen Victoria, after all.

But, see? This is the point.

If you’re busy focusing on the one thing you need, you’re not going to have time to take these little mental side trips. And isn’t that what creativity is all about? Visiting the lesser-seen spots, pointing out the inspiring views and interesting history along the way?

(This is part 3 of a series. Read Part 1 HERE. And, Part 2 HERE.)

So, what’s brought this subject up, anyway? (Read Part 1 here.) I’ve been reading about the World War I era to get a feel for it for my Titanic-book sequel. I’m skimming my way through books and websites, picking up ideas and tidbits of (possibly) useful information, but I’m not looking for anything specific.

At this precise moment, I don’t even know what I need to know.

I haven’t worried about the dates of the battles, or the names of the generals—they are not really necessary to my story. My characters don’t know all the details of what was happening at the front, and they don’t really care. They are busy just trying to live their lives.

Background is all about color.

I’m reading these WWI books for an idea of the world my characters lived in. Without some general knowledge of life in 1917-1919, my book would be like a pencil sketch of a person, detailed in itself, but which has no background, no real setting to give it perspective.

When you’re writing—no matter what you’re writing—you want a full-blown painting—rich with color, and with a complete background.

You can’t get that with just a few facts. Anybody who ever sat through a boring history class in school knows this. Bare facts are dry, but stories are interesting. I might know that the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917, but it doesn’t tell me the reasons—the debates at home about German submarines, or trench warfare, the economic involvement with Britain and France, the debate over the draft. My characters might not be busily debating these things in meaningful chapter-long dialogues, but they’re reading them in their morning newspapers, worrying about them when they toss in bed at night.

I don’t need to mention them, I just need to KNOW them, just like I know that my vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt and dog fur, that my cellphone can send text messages, that there are 50 states in the United States of America, and millions of other little bits of information that set me in MY place in time. I know these things that inform my world, but they don’t necessarily have an immediate impact on my daily life.

Research is for when you are looking for something specific.

On the other hand, if I want to describe what my main character wore to meet the Governor, I’m going to need an idea of what fashions were like in 1917. That’s research.

If I need to know the name of the Governor, that’s research.

Did she ride in a car or in a horse-drawn carriage to meet him? Research.

Could he have received an important phone call while she was there? Research.

See? Knowing that telephones are fairly common in 1917 is background, but the minute I need to know for a specific reason, it becomes research. Knowing that there was a governor my character could meet is background (because, of course New Jersey had a governor), but learning his name was research.

Mind you, this distinction is entirely my own personal definition. A lot of the time gleaning background information and doing research are exactly the same—sitting with a book or a handy search-engine, looking for knowledge. But you can read a car’s instruction manual out of pure curiosity and you’re a responsible car owner, or you can read it because your engine is leaking fluids and you need to figure out why right now … the NEED is different.

(This is part 2 of a series. Read Part 1 HERE.)

I’ve had a few thoughts about research rummaging around my head lately, and thought I’d turn them into a blog post, but it turned out to be way too long, so I thought I’d try a series, instead.

There’s a cozy mystery by Alisa Craig with a character famed for writing historical fiction, whose “research” involved randomly flipping a reference book open, sticking a pin into the page, and inserting whatever factoid it skewered into her book. She couldn’t be bothered with real research, she just wanted a few, random things to make it look like she knew what she was talking about.

I think we can all agree that research can be important for writing. Fiction or non-fiction doesn’t matter.

If you’re dealing with facts, they need to be right.

Inaccuracies reflect badly on us, the writers, whether it’s a statistic in a marketing piece, a quote in a blog post, or a historical fact gotten wrong in a piece of fiction. But, still, I feel there’s a difference between “doing research” and “gathering background.”

If I’m writing a piece on air purifiers, I need to know some facts about how they work. I need to know, in general, what they do, why they’re beneficial, and why you should have one. That is not the same as talking about the specific air purifier I might be trying to sell, or what makes it better than its competition. It’s more background-gathering than real, heavy-duty research.

What’s the difference?

The objective.

Research, to my mind, has a specific purpose. You could be looking for the date a war ended, the year a gadget was invented, the name of a company founder, the causes of cancer. These may or may not be questions that have ready answers, but they are specific information needs.

Background, on the other hand, is more general. At what time did having a telephone in the house become common? What was life like in the 1500s? What sort of town was Bath during Jane Austen’s time? Why is going to the dentist important? Is marketing really that useful to my company?

No matter what you’re writing, there’s a certain foundation of knowledge you need to have.

If you’re writing a marketing piece to sell vacuum cleaners, you can probably assume that potential buyers already know what a vacuum is and why they want one—your objective is to tell them why they should by THIS one. But, if you’re selling something that you have no personal knowledge of (say, professional-grade harvesting equipment, Zamboni machines, obscure medical devices), you’re going to need some background first.

You need to have at least a general idea of what you’re talking about if you want to sound even remotely convincing.

If you’re writing fiction, you need to know all sorts of things that might not find their specific way into the text. A story set in 1860 Atlanta will have all kinds of things in the background—the outbreak of Civil War, slavery, Abraham Lincoln’s election, tobacco, the latest hoop skirt fashions, the scent of magnolia blossoms, the tart zing of lemonade, what a hot, Georgia summer feels like without air conditioning, what it was like to travel in a carriage on bumpy roads … you get the idea. Will all of these things have a role in the story? Not necessarily, but they’re THERE. They are things that even a character solely focused on bringing in his cotton crop knows is happening in his world.

Okay … that’s enough for this installment … please share your thoughts below!

Did you know that Writing has a lot in common with any good Fantasy? You know the kind, where a hero faces enormous odds to go on a quest to save the world?

• Skills and Talents: Obviously every good hero needs a skillset. In fantasy, that would be sword play, great strength, nobility of heart. In writing, we’re talking grammar, vocabulary, a talent with words. Before starting your quest, you need to make sure you have the equipment you need.
• Magic: The best part about writing—that magical moment when everything comes together perfectly and you get that “Oh, that’s good” glow of accomplishment. It’s one of the best feelings in the world, and only happens when all the pieces fall precisely into place.
• Wizards and their tricks: Have you noticed how many nifty tools there are for writers these days? We don’t just have just pen and paper, now we’ve got computers, and even they aren’t limited to basic word-processing any more. There are online dictionaries and thesauruses. There are timers to help you focus for blocks of time. There are spelling and grammar checkers. Voice recognition software for when you can’t type. Recorders on your MP3 players for interviews and random thoughts. Organization software to help you keep all your pieces in order. Plus dozens more that I’m missing.
• Quest: Every good fantasy needs a goal, and for writers, it’s that perfect document at the end of the journey. It might be a magazine article, a blog post, a novel, a poem, a piece of perfect sales copy, a spot-on web page … anything, really … but you want writing that is perfect. Strong, clean, noble, brave … all the things a fantasy hero needs to be.
• Apperances can be deceiving: You can’t always believe what you see, though. Just like heroes can look like small, incompetent weaklings, and villains can be handsome and strong, you can’t assume that what you find is what it is. Good writing digs past the surface to explore the true meanings.
• Luck: As important as skill can be, don’t underestimate the importance of luck. You might keep your sword meticulously sharpened, but it’s not going to help you fight a battering-ram. Sometimes, all the skill doesn’t matter if you don’t have the luck and wits to think on your feet. Keep your eyes open to possibilities.
• Danger: Look out! There are distractions trying to pull you from your path! Time-sucks eager to delay you and keep you from your goal! Don’t let yourself be deceived by the innocuous distractions, the ones that make you think, “I can always finish this later. What’s wrong with a little recreation?” They could be evil, trying to prevent you from reaching your goals. Beware!
• Determination will win the day: The only way to successfully complete your quest is if you don’t give in, you don’t give up. Keep your eyes focused on the prize and don’t let yourself be distracted. It’s the only way to win the day.
• Happy Endings: The best fantasy stories always have a happy ending. The article gets published. The book hits the bestseller list. The sales piece sells a million units. The trick is to traverse the dangerous path to get there, but if you’re brave and strong and focused on your goal, you will succeed. That’s what happy endings are all about.
• Sequels: Don’t forget the sequels. Always be ready for more … this could be an actual sequel, as in another piece to follow up the writing you’ve done, to continue the story. OR, it might be an All New Adventure … publishing. If your successful quest is finishing your piece of writing, the obvious next part would be the quest of getting it published so other people can read it.

So–what’s your writing fantasy?

How do you feel about deadlines?

Personally, I’ve never been a fan. Not of tight deadlines, at least. The thought of being a journalist working on a 24-hour cycle of researching and writing stories gives me nightmares. Even when I was in school, I’d write down the due-date for papers a day or two earlier than they were needed, just so I’d have a cushion built-in for catastrophes.

Deadlines aren’t all bad.

Still … even I have to admit that there’s something to be said for deadlines. They give you a reason, a time frame for getting things done. You need to get things ready for the printer to have time before the magazine goes to press. You need to get your copy to a client so he can get his marketing promotion out on time. An editor needs your work to show her publisher.

When you have no deadlines at all … “I’ll finish my novel someday.” … it’s amazing how long the work can be stretched. You take breaks to chat on the phone. You’re tired after a long day, so you decide to skip writing for now. You’ve got errands to run and decide they are more pressing. Suddenly, it’s been months, or even years, and you’re still working on the same thing, tweaking commas, nit-picking adjectives, and your manuscript is never going to be done.

Deadlines can provide incentive.

One of the reasons challenges like NaNoWriMo have become so popular is that they impose specific deadlines on the writers. Get a whole novel written in 30 days? Well, suddenly there’s no time for dawdling! You chain yourself to your desk chair and suddenly are amazed at how much you can get done when you actually apply yourself.

Sometimes the clock provides its own deadline.

Are you trying to get your article done before your toddler wakes up from her nap? Are you tapping away at your novel at 11:30, trying to squeeze out a few pages before your eyelids insist on shutting for the day? Or maybe you’ve got fifteen minutes before your train leaves and you pull out your notebook to draft out your next blog post.

Sometimes, the only deadline you need is the knowledge that your precious, free moments are ticking away. You’ve been frittering away your time on Twitter or Facebook, reading your RSS feeds, browsing websites, and you realize you’ve only got half an hour before you need to turn off the computer. Cripes! Hurry, you can get at least a few hundred words pounded out before then.

This is what happens to me, I find. I can dawdle my way through my day, wasting way too much time checking my email or curling up with a book, and then bound into action like a superhero at a cry for help, simply because the precious resource I’ve been wasting is almost gone.

(We won’t discuss the occasional slow afternoon at my day job, when I sometimes open up Word and type away, just because it’s stolen time and must be used as if it’s extra precious, extra valuable. Because, of course, doing that would be wrong.)

How do you feel about deadlines?

How about you? Do you love deadlines? Dread them? Find a difference between external ones from clients and ones you’ve given yourself?

This mailing is a solid example of, first, the importance of having your demographics straight.

I got this mailing from Sports Illustrated, offering me a subscription. Now, since I’m not exactly a sports fan, their number one mistake is that the odds of me deciding to take a subscription are pretty slim.

Of course, that doesn’t reflect on the actual quality of the mailing.

Right at the top, it says, “Sports Fan Savings Offer” and tells me what the cover price of the magazine would be, how much I could save, and what I would actually have to pay.

Then, it spells out the offer details–the subscription, a free NFL Game Day Jacket (pictured), various special issues, ending with the money-back guarantee promise in case I am ever dissatisfied.

The bottom is a straight-forward order form, recapping the price and giving me space to write my credit card number before mailing it back. There’s also room to specify the size jacket I’d like (choices of Large, Extra-Large, or Extra-Extra-Large only), as well as to specify the team jacket of my choice.

How do I specify the team? The insert that came with it was covered with stickers of different team helmets, so I can pick my favorite team for my free jacket. This is a nice little interactive touch.

Ultimately, I think this was a good mailing. It doesn’t play any tricks, it offers a nice free goodie. It’s personalized with my name–a touch that can be cheesy, I think, if used too much, but hey, this is MY order form.

The only bad part is … where on earth did they get the mailing list?

Image by Jenny. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny_twum/

I was reading a book the other day … a highly educated, informative tome with dozens of pages of footnotes and an index as long as your arm. It was written, needless to say, by a well-educated person, published by a well-known publishing house and, no doubt, read over by many a skilled and critical eye for typos and errors.

However, it’s a fact of life, though, that errors slip into even the most carefully produced books.

In this case, it was the “yolk of oppression.”

Instead of the bright yellow center of an egg, the author meant the wooden yoke that harness oxen and other animals to carts, plows and other labor-intensive vehicles.

But there it was, glaring as bright as ever a sunny-side up shone from a dish.

Do I think that the author didn’t know the right word? Of course not.
Do I think he mistyped it? Possibly, or it could have been the type-setter, or any person along the line who made a small little goof. I don’t doubt that the people involvedwere well-trained and attentive to their work, but this was a big project. Huge, in fact. The book is 688 pages (including the back matter). One or two small errors are bound to happen. In cases like these, you more or less just hope that they’re small ones.

The thing that worries me, though, is not that mistakes happen, but that we’ve become so oblivious to them. And, worse, that they happen so often … careless mistakes, misspellings, slips of the fingers, momentary brain-freezes … that we start expecting them.

I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon, but it’s a rare day that I don’t see someone making stupid mistakes when they write. (Sometimes it’s me.) Tweets, message boards, blog posts, emails … But it’s one thing when somebody in a rush types “then it’s leg broke” when describing the titanic crash their curio cabinet made after their bloodhound tried to chase the cat over the top. They got caught up in the story, it happens.

It’s a different matter when you stumble across these kind of mistakes in “formal” media like newspapers, magazines, and books. Headlines, for example. Titles on published books. Billboards. You know, places where professional people put together something for the public to see and made a stupid, glaring mistake.

Mistyping “yoke” for “yolk” is minor. Yes, it caught my eye, but I remembered it mostly because of the humor–the mental image of an angry egg cracking a whip over a group of oppressed people. I’m honestly not holding it against the author or publisher (which is why I’m not publicly outing them).

What worries me, though, is that the more we grant free passes for honest mistakes like these, the more we shrug off the they’re/there/their mistakes and people confusing your for you’re, it means the more we’re simply accepting the new, lowest common denominator.

I realize this makes me sound like a crank with nothing better to worry about. There are wars and famine, disease and despair rampant out there in the world, and I’m worrying about typos?

Except… if we can’t be bothered to look after the little details, how can we be sure that we’re looking after the big ones? How can we be sure that society isn’t being as cavalier about the Big Issues that really do come down to life and death when they regularly disregard the simple, little things like spelling, punctuation and saying “thank you?”

Life is made up of small moments and minor details that add up to a life lived with grace and strength as opposed to one that’s careless and slovenly. You don’t need an immaculate home to be a good, worthy, wonderful person. You might even excuse the mess by saying you’ve been too busy saving the spotted owl and trying to solve the problem of world hunger … you’re focusing on bigger things.

But, when you’ve got a potential donor, or client, or anybody you want to impress at all, appearances matter.

You might not think that one, little typo is the end of the world (and I agree), but stop and ask yourself if it was an honest mistake or something that slipped through because you just didn’t care. The answer can make all the difference between a simple, legitimate mistake and the beginning of a slippery slope covered in eggshells and albumen because we were too darn lazy to clean up the yolks when we dropped the first egg.