The Writer’s Curse

Anyone who writes for others on a regular basis knows perfection is impossible. The writer sees what should be there, not what is.

“One final fix,” we say as we correct an error, click Save only to immediately spot another before the page refreshes.

In practice, we learn it is never really finished.

Instead, writing for others becomes a measure of good enough. The writer asks, “Is it good enough that the reader will understand what I mean without being distracted by my spelling and punctuation?”

This blog (flat5.net) began in 2001 as a family web page, but after more than a decade of growth that includes copying, pasting and touching up the old material several times, I still occasionally find a missing word, a doubled comma or some other typo in the oldest material.

It never ends.

Indeed, the paragraphs you’re reading right now have been revised a dozen times since the paper draft you see above. Over the course of those edits, this article has doubled in size, shrunk back to two paragraphs and then slowly filled out to the content you see now.

Such is the act of writing; it is never finished.

So be it.