"Don't edit during NaNoWriMo." That's the advice that's constantly dispensed. But I can't allow a glaring error to continue to live, if I catch it on a re-read. (Yes, I do read what I've written, again contrary to some of the advice out there. How else to maintain a modicum of continuity from one day to the next?) So when I see an accidental point-of-view (POV) shift, repetitive wording, gratuitous use of adverbs, and the like, I generally fix the problem then and there. Unless word count would unduly suffer. I'm no lunatic.
I fix these errors even in the heat of word count battle because I have a (probably unfounded) fear that I won't notice them on the next, post-November read-through. Better to address them right away than to risk letting them fall into the next draft or even—horror or horrors—a submitted manuscript.
Then I read King's bestsellers, and I shake my head.
King strikes me as perhaps one of the worst offenders ever with regard to POV shifts. There are other "errors" in his text which seem like rookie mistakes to me. Yes, me, the unpublished writer, but with a whole slew of books on proper technique on my shelf.
Do these errors really even matter, then? Some would say once you've mastered the rules you can break them (and ostensibly they put King in the "masters" category), but this seems like a holier-than-thou attitude with no real rigorous basis. King breaks the rules; he is successful; ergo, it must be okay to break the rules...if one happens to be King.
I'll press on with my in situ corrections. If nothing else, it defines my style. And one must have one of those, I'm told.