You Know You're A Writer When...

For the past couple of years, I’ve been subscribing to two writing magazines, ‘Writing Magazine’ and ‘Writer’s Forum’.  During my creative-drought last year, each month’s issue would pile up in the corner with the others, ignored and unread.  But my recent creative-spark has seen me trawl through the back-issues, noting down anything that may be useful, motivational or inspirational – some may see this as rather sad, but to me it’s a way to immerse myself back in the world of writing while actually making myself physically write, a bit like revision from school.

Anyhoo, I chuckled when I came across the following short article in the July 2010 issue of ‘Writing Magazine’, which quotes from a list found on the Writer’s Workshop at www.writersworkshop.co.uk – and if you’re a writer, you’ll identify with this list and chuckle too!

 You Know You’re A Writer When...

1)      You’ve run out of file colours to keep all the hand-written pages of different works.

2)      Your default template setting in Word is double-spaced Times Roman 12 point.

3)      Whilst reading another writer’s work, you find yourself thinking, ‘Too much tell, not enough show.’

4)      You have over 40 different versions of a document with the same title-beginning: .docs, .txts, edit (7), synopses, opening chapters...

5)      You have a drawer that just contains pens.  Some of them stolen.

6)      Battling with your manuscript for the past two years isn’t such a conversation stopper.

7)      You find yourself circling words that end with –ly in your kids’ homework.

8)      You’ve stared at a computer screen for more than an hour without actually adding anything.

9)      Publishing houses have somehow transformed from those great places that print books into fortresses that must be stormed.

10)  You cut a lot of slack to a rubbish film because the central character is a writer.

11)  You’re the only person you know who uses the word conducive in everyday speech.

12)  Just for a moment there, you thought one of your characters was a real person.

13)  You know what an unsolicited submission is.

14)  Quoting someone in an email to a friend, you pause to consider whether to use double speech marks or single.

15)  You found yourself nodding and smiling at most of these.