The Sight of Typos

Channeling Weird Al Yankovic!  

A few blogs ago, I posted Tunefully Yours, a collection of writer-modified opening lines to a few famous songs.

So in the spirit of that blog, here are the complete lyrics to the ol’ writing favorite  “Sight of Typos.” Sing this to Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”

Hello typos, my old friend,

I’ve come to correct you once again,

Because the words softly creeping,

Left a plot across the page sleeping,

But the story vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

despite the sight of typos.

In restless revisions I edit alone

Tighten grammar set in stone,

in front of the halo of LCD,

I tapped my fingers on the plastic keys

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a misused word

That split the prose

And revealed the sight of typos.

And in the twitter light I saw

Ten thousand writers, maybe more.

Writers talking without speaking,

Writers hearing without listening,

Writers typing novels that bookworms never read

and never shall

because of the plethora of typos.

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know –

Typos in a manuscript grow.

Hear my words that I might teach you.

Read my blog that I might show you.”

But my warnings like homonyms sound

And echoed in the manuscript rife with typos.

And the writers rewrote and prayed

To the publishing gods they made.

And the red squiggles flashed out its warning

In the sentences that they were forming.

And the sign said, the novels of authors are written in Microsoft Word

And Scrivener

And  obsessively corrected during the sight of typos.

Hope it doesn’t get stuck in your head!

Related Links: Readin’ & Writin’