I am officially very tired of reading, editing, proofreading. My eyes stick on apostrophes and hover over commas: is that two independent clauses? or, have my hearts been captured by cheese?
The worst thing about spending so much time reading for errors is that I have a hard time turing the internal-editor off. I just read A Case History, by Kate Atkinson. (Which I highly recommend to those of you who enjoy excellent characterization, impeccable grammar, and a good mystery.) As I stuttered through the first chapters, I realized that all pleasure had been lost to my need to understand how and why the author composed her complex compound sentences. I put the book down and picked up my book of grammar exercises. After carefully diagraming the sentence I was surprised to see that she has linked two independent clauses cleverly with subordinate clauses using adverb clauses (damn!); but she didn't stop there, she tossed in some compound predicates for good measure. I remained uncertain about the meat of the sentence. I took the book and my chicken scratches to Doctor M, the grammar professor. He answered the remainder of my questions using yellow and green highlighters (green for independent clauses, yellow for subordinates). The beauty of grammar shines through and I can sleep again.
Trolling the internet, I read friends' blogs. How can I be both envious of their (self-inflated and hyperconscious) talent and yet celebrate in their (latent) mistakes? Is that a noun modifying a noun? I mark their errors, invalidating their attempts at writing. But the truth is that with a good editor they could make something of themselves, maybe. I know all of this, yet I want them to also know this: stop using the thesaurus, a noun is not an adjective and when you use it as such you look like you were reading the thesaurus (I know it, you know it, but do you know I know it?). I could be that editor, swap out the hyphens for em-dashes, replace those semicolons with a comma or two, clarify pronouns. But the truth is that most don't want an editor, don't think they need an editor; I protest! I pray! I insist that everyone do grammar exercises before their spare-tire sentences sink our Nation!
