Tools of the Writer's Trade

If you're a writer, then you love words.  You love putting them together correctly.  You love spelling.  You love grammar.

You couldn't imagine writing anything anywhere that wasn't correctly-phrased, well-spelt and grammatically accurate.

In my, possibly rather harsh, opinion: if you don't care enough about words to use them properly in every situation, then you're not a writer.

Yesterday, I was browsing through the wonderful collection of blogs at Authors' Blogs, when I came across the blog of an aspiring writer.  I read the most recent post on her journal and all was going reasonably well, until I reached the last paragraph.  In this paragraph, she claimed that, as a result of the event described in the post, she wasn't going to start using correct "grammer" and spelling.  No way.  That's for losers.  Apparently.

I then went and read the blurb of her blog, wherein she claimed to be a writer... but I wasn't to expect proper spelling and grammar (at least she spelt it correctly this time) on her blog.  No, this blog is a place where the pressure's off, where she can relax and forget about treating words with respect.

I was incredulous.  How can you claim to be a writer in one breath and in the next, claim to find it "relaxing" not to have to bother with spelling?  No real writer would ever feel like that.

As I was sitting there with my lower jaw somewhere in the region of the floor, I began thinking about the realities of the situation.  Every day, we learn that it's harder and harder to be published.  The vast majority of publishing houses no longer read unsolicited manuscripts.  They've fired their readers and the onus on reading these manuscripts has fallen to agents.  Unsurprisingly, many agents are now refusing to read unsolicited manuscripts, claiming that this job should be undertaken by publishers, as it was in the past.

With all of these obstacles in your way, why would you jeopardise your chances of publication by espousing such an attitude of indifference to the tools of your trade?  The reality is that you can write an amazing, breath-taking book but it's no damn good if it's rife with errors of grammar and spelling.  No publishing house is going to take the time to fix that, not when they have another story on hand that's well-written and simply in need of a little editorial direction.

Further to this, how would your potential publisher feel if they visited your blog in order to investigate you, only to find that you disdain to use correct spelling and "grammer" there?  What sort of attitude does that reveal to your visitors?  How much respect would that really generate for you and your dream to be published?

Words are a writer's tools and they should be treated with respect.  Tradesmen look after their tools and make sure they're in working condition.  They know that if the tools aren't clean and the wires aren't intact, then they won't work properly and they won't be able to do a decent job.  Just because you can't polish words with an oily cloth is no reason not to make sure they're in proper working order.

If you truly are a writer, then you'll love words and the idea of not using them correctly will fill you with revulsion.