A cup of coffee, fingers click-clacking against a keyboard, sticky notes dotting the walls, endless daydreams, ideas scribbled onto scattered pieces of paper.
What do you think of when you see this list? Personally, I think of writing--and writers in general. These items tend to be hallmarks of authors, and though not everyone may relate to them, I definitely do--and so do many other writers I know.
Recently, this idea brought a question to my mind: if all these things are traits or habits of authors, are there other characteristics many authors have in common? Things we may do without even realizing?
Would it be possible to compile a list of these things?
The answer, of course, is yes.
So without further ado, here's my take on several ways you know you're a writer.
-Google thinks you're a parent now, thanks to all the time you've spent researching character names.
-Every person you see is potential character inspiration.
-You can accurately predict the plot of pretty much any movie or book ever.
-You've already casted the movie version of your book in your head--despite having only written three chapters of it.
-You have an inexplicable addiction to notebooks, despite the fact that you only write in a couple of them.
-It's not that you intend to get sidetracked while writing, it just happens and you don't even know how--one minute you'll be innocently working on your project and the next minute you'll suddenly find yourself watching cat videos on youtube!
-You can go weeks without writing or write 5000 words in a day--it all depends on your mood.
-You'll often come up with entire plots in the middle of the night, only to forget them by morning.
-Sometimes you'll actually write down those plot ideas you come up with in the middle of the night--only to come back to them later and realize they're the worst ideas in the history of the known universe.
-Your google search history is comparable to that of a serial killer (I promise there is a totally normal reason why I'm looking up fastest-acting poisons!).
-Other people lose sleep because they were up late at parties, or maybe doing last-minute homework assignments. Not you--you lose sleep because you got the perfect solution to that plot hole as soon as you went to bed and HAD to write it down!
-People who offend you had better watch out--they just might wnd up getting inserted into your next novel and killed off!
-On a related note, you often unwittingly write people who don't offend you (aka friends), into your book as characters.
-The notes app on your phone is filled with random notes about stories, which you put there and can no longer decipher.
-Sometimes you'd rather hang out with the people in your fictional world than those in the real world.
-You're the only member of your novel's fandom, but boy are you dedicated.
-You get really excited when you find someone who looks/acts like a character of yours.
-If anyone, at all, ever, saw a first draft of your writing without your permission, you might actually die.
-You're curious about EVERYTHING--who knows when that random science fact you learned in 5th grade could come in handy?
-You sometimes narrate your own life in your head, as if you're a character in a book.
-You have a minimum of 27 different WIPs at a time, only two of which you actually have the inspiration to work on.
-The mere sight of a mixed up your/you're or there/their/they're makes you want to attack the page it's on with a red sharpie.
-You've dreamed the answer to plot holes and scenes before (whether those dream-made answers are usable, however, is another matter).
-You only get inspiration at the most inopportune times, but then as soon as you actually have time to sit down and write, all that inspiration flees.
-You're procrastinating working on your WIP right now.
So what do you think? Do these apply to you? Are there perhaps any things that I missed? If so, make sure to let me--and the rest of the YWPJ team--know in the comments!
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