Better Living Through Proofreading

In an earlier time, when one's eyesight was clearer, one was a dab hand at proofreading. Author Melissa Holbrook Pierson explains why she loves it, too:

"I love catching those little inconsistencies, love putting the point of my freshly sharpened red pencil on top of a comma that needs to be a semicolon, and inscribing the delete symbol, like the letter 'S' with a flourish, that will herald the disappearance of anything it touches. This I do with care and precision, two qualities I rarely exemplify in any other part of my life, and here is where proofreading allows me to better myself. I become someone who gets things done. Someone with good handwriting. Someone who pays attention, with great focus, and lets nothing get by her."