Time To Edit

I don’t know how I ended up with this eraser, but it seems perfect for this post.

Austin Kleon writes about blogging as a forgiving medium. It doesn’t carry the risk of social media (particularly Twitter). It allows for editing even after a post is originally published. I was happy to read that I’m not the only one that goes back and edits my blog posts several times after they are published.

Being wrong publicly is the easiest way to learn what you need to know. The trouble is: it’s also the easiest way to get yelled at or shamed or “canceled,” as they say.

To do the exploration that growth and change requires, one needs a forgiving medium… but what one really needs forgiving readers.

A few years ago, when I published a Frosted Echoes as a newsletter, one of the things that frustrated me most was catching an error after I had sent out the email. It was almost impossible to avoid, no matter how many times my eyes scanned over the text. It feels much more comfortable to post a blog post and have the ability to correct mistakes after the initial publish. The social piece of Micro.blog even allows you to edit responses to people, once they have been posted.¹

What Kleon gets at here, though, is the ability to correct not a spelling or grammar mistake, but something you may have been wrong about. A chance to change your mind. It’s being active on a public platform that allows for a modicum of grace.

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