Never Write Faster Than You Can See

One of the problems with being an insanely popular blogger is that you are your own editor. I work on a razor thin margin. So finding quality help on the cheap can be difficult. In the old days, I would write something and save it, then view the blog the following day for accuracy and editing.

Sometimes I just shit canned the whole piece. I still kill 10-15% of my blogs. When you are a Police Chief in a small town- you simply can't tell the world that your boss is a self absorbed narcissist. You have to be careful. Your on the job life expectancy can drop precipitously based on content. Just because something is true- Eugene used to say- doesn't mean you gotta tell anyone. (Eugene was an old salty cop and one of my heroes) So content can be a problem but mostly- it is difficult to edit your own stuff.

Grammar and sometimes mistakes can you make.

Having said all of this- and having broken free of those chains that once bound me- let me offer up this advice.

If you write faster than you can see, go back and look at your writing often. Read it out loud. That's how I catch mistakes. I constantly re-read things I have written and I always seem to be editing. It's like a never ending process.

When I go to a new blog and read some horribly written stuff- that pretty much does it for me. The author of any given blog might be a genius but they still have to convey what they write in some understanding and meaningful way using decent, not perfect, writing.

I'm still not sorry I dumped English for law enforcement. It was a good trade.