Happy Birthday, Mom

I've invited my wonderful mother to read this blog, and in honor of her upcoming birthday I want to share a little sort-of-anecdote.

I was recently talking with my best friend, who is a multi-published author with a contract for a series.  She writes a lot.  Her mother is also a published author.  My friend described their lovely symbiotic relationship in which her mom proofreads all her work.  (If you are the mother of an adult child, you probably understand why I say this is symbiotic.)

It's adorable, isn't it?  And it would never, ever work for my mother and me.  Yes, my mother is well educated, well read, and has never made a spelling error in her life, but she did make the mistake of passing her Stubborn Gene down to me.  As a matter of fact, it is specially calibrated to respond to her own voice.  My mother could gently suggest to me that periods should be placed at the ends of sentences, and I would argue with her.

"You just don't understand," I'd say, and then I'd launch into some inventive rationalization of why my prose is too special for punctuation.  I am simply incapable of doing anything she tells me to. 

She would have to employ reverse psychology to induce me to correct anything at all.  "I just love the way you spelled archniods!  That sounds much more spiderish to me!"  She's probably had to do this my entire life, the poor woman.

I love you, Mom.  I hope you have a fantastic birthday.