A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Proofreading

My Medium boost, blunder and must-do writing tip

Photo credit: Author

I pride myself on proofreading everything I write. As writers, we should always subscribe to that, write? OK, kidding aside, I also find typos in everything I read, including menus, store signage, TV closed-captioning, NYTs bestsellers and even Medium stories.

I don’t look for them. They just pop up all around me. Sometimes they are glaring and deserve to be photographed like the one above. It drives me crazy when I spot a typo, and I call it out to whoever is with me at the time. If I’m reading alone, I tsk-tsk aloud.

When my first-ever piece got “boosted” on Medium, I reread it to myself aloud. I was proud of the moment that got it to that point, embarrassed to say how many times I had read it aloud, had trashed versions of it, and had been encouraged by all the wise eyes who advised. Looking at you, Roz Warren.

I hadn’t thought about using Medium’s TTS, text to speech technology tool as part of my checklist. Call me late to the party? When I noticed the button at the top of the template, I gave it a go with my already published and boosted piece to hear the way TTS would pronounce a Yiddish word and a French brand name in my story.