Editing Woes

I was reading through some of my work recently and noticed a few little typos that had somehow slipped under my radar. Once I noticed a couple of things, other little errors or inconsistencies started to appear. Then I started to suffer from a period of self-doubt that must afflict all writers from time to time. Often it becomes an unkillable monster, threatening to throw you off course and destroy the will to write.

My recent editing woe is the possessive nouns issue. Books. Book's. Books' etc.

I thought I was reasonably proficient in terms of grammar. In fact I am quite confident in my use of grammar, but when writing with the purpose of making your work available for mass consumption and ultimately for sale, you have to make sure it's perfect. A recent re-read of Unfamiliar Country threw a couple of grammatical spanners in the works. I had the line;

What remained of his hair was closely shaved to his head which he did himself with barber's clippers every month.

This should be 'barbers clippers' – as the clippers are not owned by a specific barber. I made the change and then continued to read – except now I was thrown into confusion every time I saw an apostrophe and s together. Suddenly I was a fumbling idiot whenever it came to a noun that might or not be owned by someone or something.

Surely I am not the only one to have this crisis of confidence when self-editing? And I bet there are a million other things out there hidden in the grass waiting to trip me up. Split infinitives anyone?

PS – if you spot any errors in my writing along these lines I'd be keen to know.