To Write or Not is the Right Question:

Of all the things "thin skinned" people should avoid, being a writer is way up there near the top of the list. "Why", you ask? Well, because if you want to write, you expect people to read what you write. People don't want to read stuff that is all messed up with incorrect spelling, no punctuation, no capital letters and other mistakes that people make in the "written word". The reader is going to comment that the writer is a dim witted individual. That would hurt!

Okay, there are lots of intelligent people that can carry on a conversation with the most highly educated person and sound as though they have an excellent command of the English language. And in conversation, they can speak eloquently. And the reason this is true is because the person speaking does not have to define the words (as in explaining to, too, two) which they are using. The person speaking occasionally stops to take a breath, (allowing the placement of commas, exclamation or question marks). And, the person speaking is quite capable of speaking words which they have no idea how to spell, but the listener doesn't know that.

Those of us who write and hope to profit by it are usually eager to have our errors pointed out in order to correct and improve our writing. We will often search archives to compare our style and ability with others. We will even ask ourselves if we are guilty of some of the errors we invariably come across in other people's work. We are quite aware that having a great deal of knowledge about a subject does not automatically make us capable of writing it down clearly and concisely enough for it to look professionally composed.

Anyone who is serious about their writing must overcome being "thin skinned". If they take every comment as a personal attack on their work, they must be at least somewhat insecure about their abilities in the first place. This should be a red flag for that person to review very carefully what they have written. If they become defensive because they are new at writing, then they should be willing to accept the criticism as being constructive, rather than using that as an excuse for poor writing.

It can never be overstated how necessary it is to use spell check. But this does not take the place of our carefully reading over our work in search of the other errors we may have made. Often we need only replace a word, delete a word or two, or re-write a sentence to make it more concise. Never be in such a rush that you settle for instead of striving for.