I’ve been preparing my entries for March’s Scottish Association of Writers’ conference. There is a huge selection of competitions to try and as I’m not adjudicating this year, I have no excuse for not having a go. I enjoy adjudicating and receiving the bundle of entries for my category, though it’s quite a lot of work to go through each entry picking out its strengths and weaknesses. And then trying to choose the first three for prizes. So often it’s a close run thing though sometimes there is one outstanding attempt that just has to take the first prize.

Ayr Writers’ Club winners 2018

I supply a critique for all the entries which hopefully the writers will benefit from, as it’s important to try to be positive and give constructive criticism. But this year it’s my turn to be on the receiving end and I’m hoping for some useful advice from the very experienced adjudicators in the categories I’ve entered.

So I’m carefully re-reading my pieces to tidy them up and correct any typos that I have missed before. I dislike reading pieces where the writer hasn’t bothered to edit their work and correct any misprints and I just hate it myself when I realise I’ve missed something on my pieces.

There is a very interesting article in the recent Author magazine on misprints and typos in poetry that have made it into publication, sometimes to the improvement of that particular line of verse. But the one  everyone quotes is the Barker and Lucas Bible of 1631 which proclaimed in the Ten Commandments that ‘thou shalt commit adultery’. And the recent hoo-ha over the Cathay-Pacific plane with Pacific spelt without an ‘F’ shows that no-one is immune from it.

Including myself. Confession time! Every year I make a calendar, using photos taken throughout the year, for close members of my family to use. It’s a fun thing as well as a reminder of what went on in our lives in the previous year. I use Vistaprint for templates and from my previous orders for a variety of things like flyers, business cards, posters and of course calendars, I can see that I’ve been using them since 2002.

So you’d think I knew my way around by now. There was a slight problem with the 2019 calendar template but I had the bright idea of using an older version and changing the photos. This I did and put in my order. I was delighted when they came but it was only when my husband tried to write in a dental appointment to remind himself, that he noticed something was very amiss. It was a calendar with the dates for 2012! I had forgotten that I had to change the dates as well.

Ooops!

Fortunately I hadn’t sent them round the family. I got back on to Vistaprint but was still unable to access the 2019 template. I messaged them and a few hours later, they messaged back to say they had changed the date on my calendar for me and were sending out new copies post-haste and free gratis. Now that’s what I call excellent service!

So in a couple of days I will have the new calendars and be able to fill in the important dates in my life – the dentist, optician, nurse, etc etc. And of course, the dates for the Scottish Association of Writers’ conference!