Authors are artists and words are their medium. I learnt a long time ago that the connexion between the brain and the fingers when typing is not always reliable and that this results in mistakes being made. When I start work on a new book I use the tried and tested method of the first draft. I do not attempt to write a word perfect manuscript, I just try to capture as much of the original idea and inspiration at this point. Spelling, grammar, and syntax take very much a back seat. It is when I move onto the second draft that I start considering the technicalities of writing. I spend a lot more time and effort on getting it right first time at this point, but of course I always fail; at least with the spelling.

Typically, my stories run to +100,000 words, which is quite a lot. Every single word is a possibility for a mistake to occur, although the use of spell checkers does help to reduce this window of opportunity somewhat. A revision of the manuscript at various stages is also useful. Additionally, I can employ people to proofread it when I think that I am finished. After they have done their part I can revise it again; still mistakes get through the net.

I am currently carrying out a revision of the novels that make up The Sorrow Song Trilogy , which amounts to +300,000 words in all, and I am dismayed to discover that there are certainly too many such errors in all three manuscripts. They are not major catastrophes, that is true, but they are small individual blots on what I thought were by now pristine works of art.

More fool me!

There is nothing wrong with wanting your work to be as good as possible, but we have to accept that we are only human and we make mistakes. Even the people I have paid to act as editors have made mistakes. I accept that fact. Humans do not produce anything that is perfect. If something appears that seems to lack an imperfection then it was probably produced by a machine, not a human. In time I might eliminate all the written mistakes that still currently exist in my manuscripts but that alone will not make them perfect. There will be readers who do not like my style of writing, or use of certain words, or even the story itself, and I have to accept that fact. As the adage goes, you cannot please all of the people all of the time. I suspect that that would be true even if I did turn out a flawless manuscript at the first attempt. As good as I can possibly make it is my aim and I really cannot do any better than that.