I just sent out an Evite to a neighborhood event I’m hosting (Sweater Weather
Get-Together). I wrote the following sentence: The summer party brought out
such create cuisine that we’d love to see a repeat.

My amazingly smart friend pasted that into our IM conversation, and I stared in
horror at the obvious error. Was I thinking of writing “great cuisine” or “creative
cuisine?” My face went a little white as I perused the guests who had already
responded. Another great word warrior had seen the email and perhaps the error.
“Come on, bethie [sic], it’s a party invitation, not the Kyoto Accords,” my
smart IM friend comforted. “And I am the sort of fella who’ll tell you that
there’s a fragment of spinach in your teeth rather than let you grin all night
with it festering there.”

Sure, a typo is not a big deal most of the time. But I’m a writer. More than that,
I’m trying to make a living as a writer. What would a client think if fashion
designer Vera Wang was running late to a consultation and popped over in Hanes
Her Way sweats? A self-professed “copy writer” wrote to my generic web address
the other day with an almost incomprehensible plea for me to hire her. Of
course I wouldn’t hire her! She couldn’t write a three-line email that made
sense.

If a writer doesn’t practice her craft perfectly in all communications, will her
reputation suffer? Typos happen, and I’ve become horribly paranoid that each
time my fingers fly before my brain computes, I’m in danger of losing potential
clients.