Attention to detail separates brains from boneheads

Two and a half years ago, I had two pieces of flash fiction acception to an anthology, which shall remain nameless, but whose name is synonymous with Insight! It was my first acceptance to a fiction collection, and I couldn't have been more excited. Imagine my disappointment when I received the publication and the bio paragraph said something like, "Gale Martin has published numerous pieces of short fiction. He lives in Lancaster County . . . ."

He? I'm a he? Like I was going to show my first anthology acceptance to anyone after that gaffe. I wrote the editor, thanking her for inclusion in the publication but told her by no means am I a he. I've never been a he. I'm not a transgendered individual and have no plans to become one.

She apologized profusely and said I should submit two more pieces of flash for the next edition.

Well, I did. And guess what? This time, she referred to me as a she but spelled my first name wrong. She spelled it G-a-i-l.

Now, in the first place, I never misspell my own first name. Most people usually don't--not even the diehard boneheads among us. So either this editor thought she knew better than me how a woman named Gale should spell her name or she was a complete and utter bonehead.

I'm thinking complete and utter bonehead at this juncture.

Thanks to this editor, I mention the clip in my bio, but I never show these stories to anyone. How embarrassing! And if she was so careless with my information, I can only assume twenty or thirty other writers who had their work accepted in Insight! are hiding their anthologies in the back of bookcases worldwide.

This editor has gone on to publish her own work, which leads me to believe that she's not only a bonehead but an egocentric bonehead who gets the details right when they concern herself but not when working with other writers.

I know my first name has an unusual spelling. My whole life long everyone has misspelled it. I'm named for my late father, whose first name was Galen, which I'm none too proud of since he was a cruel, self-centered man. My parents simply dropped the "n" from Galen and got Gale. But Gale can also a man's name. So besides being named for a crummy, abusive human being I virtually hated and who gave me a lot of bad genes, I am constantly having my name spelled Gail or Gayle or even Gael, and to top it off, on those rare occasions when they spell my name correctly, I'm addressed as Mr. Gale Martin. After about forty-five years of having my name chronically misspelled or being confused for a man, I thought I'd adopt the nickname Gray, which some of my closest writerly friends call me. Turns out people can and have misspelled that, too, addressing me as Grey. Maybe I should just change my name to Lil. Or Bob. Or maybe people should just start getting it right, no matter what I choose to call myself.

The point of this whole post is to say that attention to detail matters--at every intersection in life--but it's critical for writers. It may be a learned skill that requires more effort for the global, big-picture thinkers among us, but I can't imagine succeeding as a writer or an editor without a requisite attention to detail, so you'd better start paying attention.

It all gets back to a point I made speaking to a freshman composition class taught by a Wilkes University writing program colleague. Know your deficits. That editor should have known she had a propensity to mispell people's names or to be careless, and double-checked her work. She should have had enough self-awareness to accept that she tends to make assumptions because she's lazy that could easily be clarified with a follow-up email, such as, "I'm putting your bio together. Silly question, but are you a male or female?" Granted, that's a very silly question, but it's not nearly as stupid as the mistakes she ultimately made out of carelessness.

Pay attention. Be careful--especially when spelling others' names. If you are an egotist, avoid the natural tendency to be so egocentric that you think you and your concerns are the only ones that matter. Or be prepared to be viewed as a big, fat bonehead.

Signed,

Bob