Rules are Made to be Left Up to Style

It drives me nuts that we have unbreakable rules for such small things like:

• west as a direction, but West as a location
• If you want to shorten a word it's 'em and not 'em (of course no curly quotes here)
• How to properly use ellipsis 
• Three different types of dashes 

But when it comes to the bigger things like capitalization and when you want to use commas, errors in writing become "the author's style." 

Characters Are People Too

I think one thing that writer's forget sometimes is that their characters are people too. That's probably where we get the "Mary Sue" trope, it's with this idea that the person who is going on this amazing journey has to be perfect since they are the only one worthy of it. As much sense as that makes, it's also not true.
We never go and do something different with the expectation that we will be perfect at it (if you find any early writings you'll know this to be fact). Yet that doesn't mean that the character won't pick up on one skill faster than another, we all have our areas of expertise. Though just because we have areas we do well in doesn't mean that we don't still struggle, and isn't that why we read? To see the character struggle and come out stronger for it?
Characters are people too, they'll learn, mess things up, win and lose, excel at somethings and completely fail at others. Sometimes they'll be put in front of some hard decisions, make the wrong choice, and have to face the consequences. All of this is part of the journey that a reader wants to see, it's why they picked this story.

Onelook.com

This website is extremely helpful if you are look for the proper way to spell a word, since it depends on what dictionary you're looking at. The great thing about Onelook is that it will tell you how many and which dictionaries use which spellings.

There are two different ways you can spell goodbye and it shows that "goodbye" is the most accepted one. Most often I will trust the Merriam-Webster or the American Heritage dictionaries.

What I’ve learned so far in my editing class:

• Selling 100,000 books in a year makes you a New York Times Best Selling Author
• If you want to work with the Big Publishing Houses you need a Literary Agent
• Do Not become attached to the title you come up with
• Always get veto rights on you cover art
• Cover Art can make or break a book
• Always avoid Vanity Presses
• Keep a reference list on hand of all the words you have trouble spelling
• Keep a story specific list of words or phrases to save time on double checking

How to Write Numbers:

The most important thing is that you keep what you do consistent.

  Also use your best judgement when writing numbers in dialogue. 

Years

• Spell out centuries
• twenty-first century
• Use apostrophes to show missing numbers
• always angled to the left ′70
• Use numerals for dates
• September 17, 2012
• Don’t use apostrophes for plural years
• 1920s

Spell Out

• If followed by hundred, thousand, hundred thousand
• Any number that comes at the beginning of a sentence
• work it so years don’t end up here
• Always write out centuries
• Measurements
• unless it’s normally seen as a numeral, 50 gallons
• Simple Fractions
• unless mixed with whole numbers
• Monetary Values
• unless it’s complicated or a lot of values in one paragraph
• Times followed by o’clock and half-hour or quarter times
• unless it’s specific: 4:18
• don’t use numerals for midnight or noon
• Spell out numbered streets up to 100

Use Numerals

If followed by million, billion, etc

If a complicated number

• 54,321 instead of spelled out

If there are a lot of numbers in one paragraph

Abbreviated unit of measurement

• 50 mph
• no numeral then spell out the measurement

Percentages

• if using % no space between numerals and symbol

For pages, chapters, volumes, verse numbers, illustrations, and tables