I will know I have finally found my chill the day I don't rush home at the sight of a typo.
Perfectionism has been a really big challenge to overcome. I used to get panic attacks over this nonsense - because it was ingrained in me as a kid and young adult* that I wasn't allowed to make mistakes. They'd be used against me even years later. They were why I failed.
Now I know the world won't end if there's an apostrophe where it shouldn't be.
In theory. When stress levels are lower all around. 🙃
@MLClark
I feel ya on this. ❤️
My .02: if the message is 90-100% accurate, it ain't my fault they don't understand the concept of context clues 🤷♀️
With the underfunded state of my news media outlet right now, I have to be doing due diligence on every level of proofing for articles with a LOT of key components: is everything sourced that needs to be sourced? Have all the names and numbers been checked? Are the sources the most robust one can find? AND check for typos that for some reason the spell-check isn't picking up.
Meanwhile, in my volunteer capacity for SFWA? At least 3-4 reads on every wee blog post we accept! 😂
So - my attention is definitely focused more these days on getting my sources where they need to be, and checking names and numbers. I still read my work MANY MANY times before sending it up for publication, but one needs to take a break between editing for content and proofing for tiny errors--which I don't do as often as I need to.
(And for which I'm definitely not get compensated enough - but at this point, it's just a matter of personal integrity around work with my name.)