You Don't Get the Swag if You Ain't Got the SPAG

Something I've talked about before, like at the start of this year, is that if you want to be a real writer, you've got to put the work into knowing basic spelling and grammar.  Recently a couple of doofuses on writers.net again advocated the lazy approach.

One said:

As for SPaG errors... while I do realize that poor SPaG can make a story somewhat more difficult to read smoothly (and, realize how important this truly is), I have to say that I'm less concerned with things that a SpellCheck program can fix, than I am with the quality of the content.

And it took me a while to realize what the fuck SPaG meant:  Spelling & Grammar.  I kept thinking spaghetti.  Mmmm...spaghetti.

The thing was this guy had problems all over with formatting his dialog.  Missing commas especially.  Sure he can say that's not important but if you don't know what's wrong, how can you hope to fix it?  And if you submit it to an agent with the "SPaG" errors you're going to look like a chump, right?

It was someone else who said, "Meh, the editor will fix it for me."  And I just had to shake my head.  Sorry, Sunshine, but editors don't clean your messes up for you anymore.  They aren't going to wipe your rear for you either.  They expect you to take care of most of that shit.  Offutt can testify to the quality of smaller press publisher editors.  As can I.  You're lucky if they even bother to return the manuscript.

I think I've said before it's just disrespectful to submit your unproofed crap to agents and editors.  There are a lot of people who work hard on their manuscripts and you think you can just toss out any old thing and make it?  Ha.  It's as naive as all those girls who think they can go out to Hollywood and become a big star in days.

Always put your best foot forward, even if it's just SPaG.