Mistakes that stay with you…

I rewrote this sentence several times. As a common truism has it, writing is revising. 

Looking through several authors’ versions of the observation, this slightly less pithy one stood out: “Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what one is saying” (John Updike). I’ve written elsewhere about how profoundly true that was for me in the Rivers process – and how it cannot be untangled from the search for how best to say it.

The intensity of the intertwined endeavor, I found, “dried out” some when it came to basic editing tasks involving grammar, punctuation, and fact-checking. Because the primary source material I drew from for the memoir was my old email printouts, there weren’t all that many outside facts to check. After the book was published, aside from a few remaining typos I could’ve sworn I’d eradicated, I was shocked to come across a glaring factual mistake. It doesn’t essentially affect the story, yet it irks me that the release year I gave for one of the songs mentioned was way off. (Sorry to disappoint, but I’m uninclined to detail the error here. I’d love to hear from you if you notice it.)

Assured that all but the most avid music-loving readers wouldn’t catch it, I further comforted myself with the plan to rewrite that paragraph for the next printing – I’m low on my home inventory anyway. Since the book is independently published (and printed on demand when ordered), there’s also the option of updating the digital file anytime, making the corrected version available within days for readers who buy online. 

When people ask about pros and cons of indie publishing, it’s easy to explain why I went the route I did with Rivers. An efficient book revision process is one of many pluses. However, my minor factual flub highlights what would’ve been one benefit of working with a standard publisher instead: my error likely would’ve been caught in advance by an in-house editor routinely verifying factoids. (While I did work with beta-readers, I specifically requested they focus on other aspects.)

Nope, this miss is all on me. Throughout the composing stage, I took the time to verify each music-related assertion, so I’m still surprised it escaped me. In this single instance (I hope!), I must’ve looked up the song title too fast and misread the year. I guess I was preoccupied with that search for what I was really saying.

I’d like to think I won’t let that happen again in future projects. But we all know that just means I’ll manage to make other errors. A long time ago, in a conversation with my brother, he found me too apologetic for an oversight of mine and retorted, “You think you’re above that?” Pithy way to make the point.