Typo Artist

Yep, that’s me :). If there’s a word that’s almost, but not quite the same, as the word I want, I’ll pick that word a good 30% of the time, making the most delightfully awful sentences. I would buy that it’s my own laziness, except I really am trying to catch the mistakes. I’ve gotten to the point of looking up any word I’m not completely sure about, just to make sure it’s the right one. But still, they slip by me.

Some of my more memorable ones: I once used immolate instead of emulate, thing instead of thigh, bowel instead of bowl, and, most recently, I used shutter instead of shudder. What makes the typos so funny is half the time they work in the sentence, but you can tell they aren't right. Take the immolate one. I was trying to say my heroine emulated the hero’s mount. Meaning she tried to jump onto the horse like he had. I ended up saying she sacrificially killed his horse. It could have happened, but it didn’t. And the thing-thigh one...well, let's just say that one had my writers group laughing so hard there were actually tears involved.

I’ve gotten used to laughing at them, too. After all, it’s apparently part of me, part of who I am. I’ve also gotten used to running my work by at least three critic partners that understand who I am, are used to looking for my quirky typos, less an editor read that my heroine drank from a bowel instead of a bowl.

Sigh…