Seeing Mistakes

The past few weeks I have been in the process of developing and launching our church web site. At the same time I have been in the process of preparing a book for publication. The beginning and the end of writing anything are arguably the most difficult parts. It is after the writing is done the most difficult part begins. Editing. I hate editing. Thank goodness I have people willing to edit what I have written. God bless editors.

When I was writing a weekly column for a local newspaper I had a friend in the church I served who functioned as my editor. She was one of the church’s elders, a lovely lady, highly organized, well-educated and loved to make red marks on my drafts. When I thanked her for all of her help she said, “No problem. I just love pointing out other people’s mistakes.” There you have it – an editor.

Writing itself is difficult but it is fulfilling to see words form on the paper that conveys the story one is trying to tell. The writer must first have the discipline to set aside the time to write. And most often those are extended periods of time spent alone and in silence. There is nothing exciting or sexy about writing. Often the words either don’t come or it feels like the writer is trying to chip them out of stone. There are those few occasions when the words just flow onto the page/screen. Unfortunately I rarely experience such occasions. Sometimes I write a piece of a piece and then abandon it for several days or weeks before returning to complete it. Writing looks and sounds easy. It is some of the most difficult work I do.

Writing an article or a book or verbage for a web site must invariably be followed with the editing of the work. I don’t like editing for several reasons. Most likely at the crux of my dislike for editing is that I am not good at it. Especially editing my own work. I can’t seem to see my own mistakes. I reread what I have written, and instead of reading what I have really written, I read what I intended to write. My eyes and my brain supply the words I left out but intended to include.

My next non-editor quality is that I can’t spell. When I say I can’t spell, what I mean is, I can’t spell. I spell so poorly that I often stump the “spellcheck” in the word processing program. I don’t come close enough to spelling a word correctly that spellcheck can figure out what I meant to say and correct it. I REALLY can’t spell.

Another “attribute” of mine that hinders my editing is that I am not a detail person. Not only do I not notice details; I don’t care about details. I am a big picture guy. I am rarely interested in what is going on around me because I am looking toward the future – toward the horizon. I realize there is a need for both kinds of people but I admit that it takes all of my restraint to not make fun of detail people. They so often get focused on details and become obsessed with getting everything “just right” they seem to regularly miss the big picture. My take on detail people; employ them to do what they do well but do not put them in charge because we will expend so much time, energy and resources on getting everything perfect that we will never be able to move ahead.

Here is another reason I don’t edit well. Most editors insist on getting all writing grammatically correct. I’m all for correct grammar – until it gets in the way of my communicating. It is not unusual for one of my editors to “fix” a sentence I have written and then be irritated when I go back and put it back just as it was. I meant for it to be grammatically incorrect because that sentence structure communicated exactly what I wanted to say in a way that was most easily understood. For example, I am aware that there are at least two incomplete sentences in this blog. I don’t care. They communicate what I am trying to get across.

Here is my point. (Believe it or not, I do have a point.) It is often very difficult for us to see our own mistakes and weaknesses. We must submit our lives to “editors.” We must submit to people we know and trust and give them the right to speak truth and wisdom into our lives. Our personal and spiritual growth will be retarded until we are willing to enter into an accountability relationship and start “editing” our lives. God bless our editors for without them everyone would know how truly inept and screwed up we are.

Copyright © 2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved