Is there a blog doctor in the house?
You’ve heard of snow blindness, right? Light reflected off snow burns the cornea, causing a temporary visual impairment accompanied by tears, eyelid twitching, and pain. It usually goes away after 24 to 48 hours.
Well, I have blog blindness. Staring at the computer screen as I write posts causes both my eyes and my brain to go temporarily blind.
Yesterday I had a bad case of it. I spent several hours writing my post, re-read it, uploaded pictures, proofread it again, previewed, and posted. A few hours later I went back to the blog. That’s when the tears, eyelid twitching, and pain began.
In all my proofreading and previewing, I forgot to check the title. Instead of “One chance, one opportunity,” I wrote, “Once chance, one opportunity.” This is what happens when you let just anybody start a blog. Are you listening, WordPress?
I tried to contact WordPress support, but they were all at home polishing off the rest of the turkey and pumpkin pie. I did a little research and discovered how to change the URL. That tidied up my blog, and I thought it solved the problem. But. Yes, there’s always a big but in the story. And usually it’s mine.
Fixing the URL did not change how my post appeared over at the WordPress topics site. I checked, and there was my blog broadcasting my idiocy to all the world. It apparently had not received the message that the URL had changed, had no idea of the words written across its forehead, and was jostling among the other blogs shouting, “Hi, world, I have just once thing to say today.”
And, as if that weren’t enough sickness for one person, I’ve also been suffering from a finger tic. After I write comments and before I can re-read them to see if they make any sense, my finger presses “reply” or “post comment.” Maybe it’s OCFD — obsessive compulsive finger disorder.
Does anyone know of a good doctor for this kind of thing?
year-struck 
I read your post yesterday and didn’t even notice it. I believe I have title blindness. I sink right into the story and that was good. I bet all your blogger friends can come up with one or more stories of how they FUBARed a post! The really good news is that you got another post out of it!
The scary part is that I will probably do it again!
I would try to help, but I’m pretty sure we have the same ailment. At least it was fixable, to a point. I used to work for a weekly newspaper with no editor. NO EDITOR! Before the paper went to press, when the copy was spread out on “the boards,” I always caught all the other writers’ typos. Nobody caught mine. I could give you some killer examples, but the shame is still too fresh. And once it was published — that was IT!
Why is it that we can find everyone else’s mistakes and not our own? It’s definitely humbling.
I am sure it’s proof positive that I am a terrible proofreader; I never noticed yesterday’s error. I know that so many times when I have spend hours cobbling together a blog post I am so tired when it comes to proofreading it that I miss many mistakes. Thanks WordPress for the edit button.
Isn’t it funny that with a little time and distance we can suddenly see the mistakes? I am thankful for the edit button; I can’t imagine what my posts would look like without it.
If you find that doctor who can cure these ills, do share.
I’m starting to suspect the only cure is to keep my fingers off of keyboards.
Haha! Been there, done that more than once 🙂
The worst is the comments! It’s terrible to post a comment on another blog, and then see some blaring error that you have no way of correcting.
Why is there no way to edit comments that you’ve made? And why do our errors need to be so noisy and draw attention to themselves?
One of Murphy’s Laws of Windows says “Perfect documents will develop errors on their way to the printer.” Perhaps that is what happened…
Thanks, Margie. It’s nice to have Murphy and his law to blame.