A Concern

Again, and against my better judgment, I’ve spent some time in the NaNoWriMo forums. I have a concern:

Many of my fellow NaNoWriMos are terrible spellers.

I don’t mean the occasional typo. We all do that, and that’s both understandable and forgivable, since most of what is put in the forums (and on blogs such as this) is fungible writing, here today, meant to be disregarded tomorrow.

I’m talking down-right terrible spelling.

Like what’s an “epilongue” – which is what one NaNoWriMo recommends to another for getting to that critical 50,000 word count. Scary. He or she admits the spelling is off – but is it really that hard to spend the few minutes finding the word in a dictionary?

Then there are the confused homonyms, the phonics-reliant spelling and other errors that just scream out to me “Whatever you do, don’t read their books.”

Then I take a deep breath, and realize that, hey, I’ve got my own writing hang-ups. I’ve got that terrible first-draftitis too. Maybe they’re lousy at spelling but better at storytelling – and spelling errors you can fix. Of course, bad storytelling you can fix too, through revision. And revision. And revision.


Still, first impressions . . .