Typos, Time Capsules, and the Art of Letting a Post Be

Special thanks once again to rojie for today’s prompt. if you haven’t done so already definitely check out her blog justrojie.com

How many revisions does your post have before you click “publish”?

Typically, for my blog posts, I might have two, occasionally three drafts before I post. Lately, that process often involves bouncing ideas back and forth or running things through a round of proofreading and revision with my AI collaborator—not to write the piece from scratch, mind you, but to catch the blind spots and sharpen the edges, much like the process started years ago with basic editorial checks.

Unfortunately for me, despite all of that, sometimes I will still find typos even after the final draft goes live. In some cases, I don’t even discover the typos for several years! And I understand why: it’s the same thing I explain to my students all the time with their writing. When you’re reading something that you’ve written yourself, and you come across a typo, we tend to subconsciously make the corrections in our head and we don’t even realize the typo is still remaining on the page.

Typos aside, I usually like to leave my blog posts as they are for posterity’s sake. I feel like my blog entries are a window into my mind, showing what I’m thinking at that particular day and time when I hit submit. I’ll go back and fix typos, and if there is really a word that’s glaring and doesn’t make sense, I’ll go back and change it. Now, I have been guilty once or twice of restructuring a couple of sentences because I thought I could make them clearer. But as far as adding new thoughts to the piece itself, I usually try to leave that alone. And even if I do do something like that, I will put some sort of tag explaining that this is me looking back and commenting on it at a later date.

Pulling up a post from 14 years ago, it’s amazing—in many ways, I am still the same person that I was back then, and in other ways I’ve changed considerably. That’s what’s so mean about having I bet catalogue like I do, each of these post gives me a tiny snapshot of where I was at that particular point in time.

Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.

Today’s post is inspired by the WordPress Daily Prompt. While I’ve taken the topic in my own direction for the Road beyond 1,000 Days, you can find more responses to today’s prompt HERE.

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AI art created by Google Gemini

The article “Typos, Time Capsules, and the Art of Letting a Post Be” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.

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