i agree with everything that kevin says. i have taken many of my own experiences and bent the "rules" to my own needs.
the 2 biggest myths you will read about are that you cant get eggs wet and you cant move an egg once its been laid. both are false.
the way i look at it is if these eggs were that needy and delicate then reptiles would have died off long ago. in the wild animals dig through the nest and destroy some eggs and throw others around that hatch fine. also it rains and floods and eggs will be introduced to all sorts of condensation and moisture. they MUST survive, otherwise they would fail in the wild.
i myself had an entire incubator knocked over once. the entire contents flipped completely upside down. this was one month into incubation. every single egg hatched fine.
i mist my eggs if they start to dimple prematurely, i also moisten the substrate directly around the eggs as well.
now im not saying you should use your eggs for baseball and then throw them in a pond and they will still hatch. i am saying that books have guide lines not rules and they are usually best but not absolute.
adam jeffery