Spellin Mastakes

One of the spelling mistakes that has always bugged me is when people write "your" instead of "you're". The hypocritical thing about this attitude, is that I used to get "then" and "than" mixed up all the time. Not only that, but I'm terrible with grammar and the myriad of rules I should know and follow as a writer. In fact, I'm sure I've broken a number of grammatical rules in this post. Why am I going on about this? First and foremost, because I misspelled "you're" in my last post and I wanted to call attention to my own mistake and let you know that we all make mistakes. Secondly, because I think that being a great technical writer doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a great creative writer (and vice versa). And last but not least, because I know I've got things to work on. Just because I don't like studying grammar doesn't mean I get to avoid it. Like Stephen King said in his fantastic book, On Writing, grammar has to be part of every writer's toolbox and I'm planning on making it one of mine. So, I'm going to commit myself to studying a different grammatical rule every day for the next month. I encourage you to do the same. After all, it's only when you know the rules that you can consciously break them. Otherwise, you're not being a rebel, your ... I mean you're ... just being sloppy.