Home » My Books » Dear Typo,

Dear Typo,

I hate you.

I hate you like a massive raindrop falling randomly onto my cigarette from an otherwise decently blue(ish) sky.

I hate you more than that.

I hate you like an unknown cut from a piece of glass – the ones you don’t feel until they’re open and you’re squirming all over the place because it’s just so gross.

I hate you more than that.

I hate you with the intensity of the fire of a thousand suns.

I hate you that much.

I hate you because you bring out the worst side of me – the crazy one that doesn’t feel even slightly okay regardless of whatever else is going on. I hate you because you make me feel uncontrollably neurotic. You make me feel like the world is ending and that joke my dad made about an asteroid falling on my head really just might come true.

But I don’t hate you because you exist. I hate you because your existence is my fault.

As much as I hate you (oh, I hate you so much), I also . . . appreciate you. You’ve made me realize that I’m too hard on myself. You’ve made me realize that I spend too much time sweating the small stuff. You’ve reinforced that I’m only human at a time when finally starting to accept that being human is . . . good. It’s good. I make mistakes, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

And as much as I want to destroy your existence in the world, I know it would be better for me if I didn’t. People might not understand that. Hell, I’m not entirely sure that I completely understand it. But for some reason, I know you’re good for me. Because, while you may look like a mistake . . . are you really?

You’re good for me because no matter how badly I wanted to punch something or break Herald’s face (Come on, you know Herald – I’m clicking his keys all the time . . .), I did not do either of those things. And because I am still tempted to behave in such an irrational and completely unhealthy manner (Herald has brought only good things to my life, so why should I want to break his face? I can’t work without him), you will remain in existence. You’re still testing me, you see. Me letting you exist isn’t me letting you win. You’re letting me win by existing.

I know that striving for perfection is good, but I also know that it’s impossible. You’re a constant reminder of that – a little twinge in the back of my head (sometimes in the front). I could never be perfect. I might try, and trying is good. But failure is inevitable there and I need to accept that. The kicks in the brain that you’re giving me are good for me. So, while I may hate you, I accept you. Because in order to accept myself, I have to accept you. No matter how bad you are, you are good for me on the whole.

I can’t hate myself for not being perfect anymore, but I can still hate you a little bit instead.

Sincerely,

C

PS) Remember who created you. She can squash you in an instant if she decides to. Just keep it in mind. 🙂

Why couldn’t you have AT LEAST been the same word?

30 thoughts on “Dear Typo,

  1. Sometimes I’m too harsh on myself over my work. But, what we may fear is wrong, could actually be fine. Too much thinking affects is. Let yourself flow freely. Just go with the flow. I do. 😊

      • Haha. Things do get better, and you know what! Once you experience what may seem impossible, it actually becomes possible. How I come to approach things, negative or positive?

        I don’t think about them as much, if it messes up, it messes up. At least I come to know or will learn why. ; ) One never stops learning, we are constantly learning.

        No mistakes, only learning from what we not know, but feel. Negatives and positives are part of life. 😊

  2. I’ve learned this … it doesn’t matter how many times I read something, or how many other people I have read it, something will sneak through. The question is … how many somethings. All you can do is minimize them as much as possible.

    • Do you have a problem with…..ADDING things?
      That’s my problem. I add things against my better judgment (due to thinking it would be more ‘technically correct’) and then…BAM! Mistakes and unhappiness all around. I’ve learned my lesson (not just over the specific typo I was talking about here, which was the result of one of those instances), and from now on I’m just going to have to put other people’s opinions out of my head and go with my gut.

      You’re absolutely right though. No matter what you do or how much help you get…something will sneak through.

      • My biggest problem these days is that my fingers no longer type the words that are in my head.
        But your issue is one that I see a lot of as well. You decide to add or change something and in the process forget to delete the old stuff. And right in the middle of a beautiful sentence, there’s an extra word. Bah!

      • Well, my biggest problem with that sort of thing is that my fingers work faster than my brain when I’m typing. That’s one of the reasons I have to do my edits on paper (when I input the changes there’s no room for ‘extras’). I had to go through it on the computer for the input from my editor and the major typo was me changing a sentence on that run-through, then not catching it on paper (but I know it wasn’t there before and that I didn’t mess with that sentence on the paper run-through).
        Also, speaking of the brain/hand thing… Do you ever type like…WHO instead of TO or YOU? Things like that?
        I have that problem…
        The specific word was me typing in the complete wrong word, like above. Same first letter and last letter. Don’t ask me. My brain is defective. haha

        What do you mean about your problem with not typing?

    • Thank you! haha

      And if I’m even remotely involved in something now, I’m just going to assume there’s a typo somewhere.
      I’m not seeing any, and you definitely didn’t put any on there. Well, minus grrrrrrrrrrr, but I don’t think that’s actually one. Are sounds typos? Why can’t we have ? and ! right next to each other? Why does everything have to be perfect all the time?!

      Sorry. I’m a bit sleep-deprived. Probably shouldn’t be commenting on here, come to think about it…
      >.>
      <.<

      Any typos?

  3. As I read this, all that went through my head was, “Kill the typo. KILL THE TYPO!” You know what is a real bother? When spell check thinks it knows more about me than I know about myself and replaces words I wanted to write, but totally got it wrong. Like “Let’s go wrangle some food.” becomes “Let’s go strangle some food.” Uh, no. That’s not what I meant!

    “Kill the typo. KILL THE TYPO!” 😉

    • HAHA! That is PRETTY MUCH exactly what I’ve been hearing in the back of my mind for the past few days.

      I’ll have to agree with you on that. You have to wonder where spell check gets some of its word change things. If I type hahaha into my phone, it’s tried to change it to something like Nehemiah before. How does that make sense??

      I wish I had the excuse of some spell check/auto-correct fiasco to blame for this specific typo, but all the blame lies with my defective brain. (I could make a really lame joke here about ‘god help any zombies that come after me,’ but…….Well…just did I guess. >.>)

      I know it might be bad of me to not fix the typo at the moment, knowing it’s there, but that sentence is currently taking one for the team. And by team, I mean my mental well-being. Then again, there are probably more of them than the one, and I’d be …. pretty unhappy if I had to go through the whole re-submission thing only to realize I’d missed another the next day. And I think if I go through that book again at the moment, I’ll lose my freaking mind.

      Wow. I just wrote you a mini-novel. Sorry.

      Kill the typo!
      I’m gonna start saying that. Even if it’s just in my head whenever I catch one. So thanks. 😉

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  5. Despite pouring over my manuscript a zillion times and despite my editor going through it as well, a typo still slipped through into the final product. Drove me crazy at first, and I really beat myself up. Eventually I got over it, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel pleasure in finding a typo in Doctor Sleep (Steven Kings’s latest), the latest Bridget Jones book, and the latest Sue Grafton one. I got a big grin on my face with each and every best-selling typo find. 😉

    • GAH! I’m sorry it happened to you too!
      That’s kind of why I’m leaving it, though. I just need to get over it.

      And how can you NOT feel at least a SMALL bit of pleasure over finding typos in big-name books? At least a little bit…

      I think it’s good to have the little reminders that we’re all human. Even Stephen King is human. Hard to believe sometimes, but…

      >.>
      XD

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