Page 1 of 2

You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 10:57 pm
by Tana L.
1. You hear voices in your head (hmm, maybe it's just me).

2. You jot down notes everywhere and on anything. (napkins, cell phones, notebooks, the back of your hands)

3. You will rewrite sentences over and over only to end up with nothing at the end. Sigh.

4. You find inspiration in almost you see, feel and touch. Yes, even with dirty diapers!

5. New people you meet in real life becomes potential characters in your new book.

6. It's hard to enjoy reading a book without your writer self criticizing an author's writing. You say something like, ugh, it should have been written this way.

7. When ideas come to you at 4 AM, you HAVE to write it down or else you're going to beat yourself up for it later.

8. You stalk literary agents and other writers online. (Blogs of course)

9. All e-mails and text messages must be proofread before it gets sent.

10. You "suddenly" notice that there are way too many empty Coke/Red Bull cans and dirty coffee cups lying around.

11. You constantly daydream that your book is the next bestseller.

12. When your and you're gets misused, it really bugs you. "So your writing a book?" You cringe and don't want to reply back on Facebook.

13. When annoying characters in your book won't leave you alone, you kill them off. However, when the guilt settles, you find a way to revive the characters back to life.

14. You get really excited when new ideas lurk around in your head but you don't tell anyone because you fear that it might get stolen.

15. There are a lot of books in your house.

16. When you engage in conversations with real people, you tend to space out and pay attention to what your novel characters are saying instead.

17. Sometimes, instead of writing, you compile music for the soundtrack of your book.

I'm sure there's more but these came to mind first. Thanks for reading!

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 11:00 pm
by THB
Other than the soundtrack part: yup, been there, done that. And it all feels oddly satisfying and insane at the same time.

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 8:10 pm
by BeccaL
I can't remember where I read this, but "Writing is a socially accepted form of schizoprenia" :) It seems to qualify with some of these things.
I have to agree with THB, been there and done that for all of them except the soundtrack part!

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 8:56 pm
by marilyn peake
You tell yourself you're going to quit writing ... you've had it, that's it, the final straw! Then you sit down the next day and calmly return to writing, as if you'd never had a single thought about quitting.

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:13 pm
by tameson
I do soundtracks- except usually it is just one or two songs that sum up the book (or the theme or whatever).

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 9th, 2010, 10:39 pm
by lexcade
i've made a whole soundtrack for 2 books (one still in idea form). i've even daydreamed about writing the artists and asking for their permission to use the music when the book is made into a movie.

i have no life :-D

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 9th, 2010, 10:56 pm
by bronwyn1
I make soundtracks too. With covers in photoshop. I also make book covers for my novels in photoshop as well

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 9th, 2010, 11:42 pm
by A.M.Kuska
1. You hear voices in your head (hmm, maybe it's just me).
Please, it's not voices. It's dialog.
2. You jot down notes everywhere and on anything. (napkins, cell phones, notebooks, the back of your hands)
Don't be silly. I have a notebook in every room, in my car, in my purse, at my work, as well as a spare-emergency-back-up notebook I carry around along with my pen. Why would I write on a napkin?
6. It's hard to enjoy reading a book without your writer self criticizing an author's writing. You say something like, ugh, it should have been written this way.
The underlined is redundant, and should be deleted. Now, what were you saying?
8. You stalk literary agents and other writers online. (Blogs of course)
That's not why I'm here at all. Why are you looking at me like that?
10. You "suddenly" notice that there are way too many empty Coke/Red Bull cans and dirty coffee cups lying around.
Not really. I recycle.

11. You constantly daydream that your book is the next bestseller.
It is the next best seller. >_>

13. When annoying characters in your book won't leave you alone, you kill them off. However, when the guilt settles, you find a way to revive the characters back to life.
Nah, I have this unsettling notion that there is peace after the grave. I prefer dangling them over a cliff, by their fingernails, with the horrible notion that they might live for days broken and alone at the bottom while I go take a coffee break.
15. There are a lot of books in your house.
I only keep the ones I don't feel the urge to edit. That's about...five.

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 10th, 2010, 1:56 pm
by shadow
1. You hear voices in your head (hmm, maybe it's just me).
hmmm.
2. You jot down notes everywhere and on anything. (napkins, cell phones, notebooks, the back of your hands)
no not really. I try to write it all onto my computer! I hate hand writing sometimes :)
3. You will rewrite sentences over and over only to end up with nothing at the end. Sigh.
do I do that?
4. You find inspiration in almost you see, feel and touch. Yes, even with dirty diapers!
Other than the diapers Yes!
5. New people you meet in real life becomes potential characters in your new book.
I ussually make them weirder then they actually are.
6. It's hard to enjoy reading a book without your writer self criticizing an author's writing. You say something like, ugh, it should have been written this way.
I do that all the time.
7. When ideas come to you at 4 AM, you HAVE to write it down or else you're going to beat yourself up for it later.
Most of the time I just can't wake up and beat myself for it at practice.
8. You stalk literary agents and other writers online. (Blogs of course)
Is adding to this forum a form of stalking? :)
9. All e-mails and text messages must be proofread before it gets sent.
I am not a grammar addict. I write for creativity and characters!
10. You "suddenly" notice that there are way too many empty Coke/Red Bull cans and dirty coffee cups lying around.
I wash my cup of coffee and I try to stay off it!
11. You constantly daydream that your book is the next bestseller.
Don't all of us?
12. When your and you're gets misused, it really bugs you. "So your writing a book?" You cringe and don't want to reply back on Facebook.
No comment.
13. When annoying characters in your book won't leave you alone, you kill them off. However, when the guilt settles, you find a way to revive the characters back to life.
If I kill I kill forever. Unless I am extremely attached to the character.
14. You get really excited when new ideas lurk around in your head but you don't tell anyone because you fear that it might get stolen.
I get so many ideas that sometimes I am willing to share!
15. There are a lot of books in your house.
sort of yeah.
16. When you engage in conversations with real people, you tend to space out and pay attention to what your novel characters are saying instead.
I try to listen.
17. Sometimes, instead of writing, you compile music for the soundtrack of your book.
I love music and I do have a soundtrack!
I'm sure there's more but these came to mind first. Thanks for reading![/quote]

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: March 14th, 2010, 10:18 pm
by emvtc
1. You stare into the refrigerator and instead of grabbing something you let out the cold and wonder what you should do now that you killed of X character and how you're going to write X's funeral.

2. You throw in the laundry and wonder why the freaking load of jeans isn't clean until you remember that you ran out of the room just as you were about to push "start" to write down that really great idea.

3. You tell yourself that you just need to finish this chapter and then you're going to feed the dog/cat/turtle/yourself and find yourself eight pages into the next chapter.

4. Just a minute ago you would have sworn it was noon now it's two and you need to go run that errand you were supposed to run an hour ago.

5. Instead of doing work when you have writer's block you Google how to make origami butterflies and make almost a dozen of them with all different colors (true statement).

6. You're on this forum.

: D

QK <---- sideways ninja!

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: April 19th, 2010, 5:58 pm
by myangelie04
I'm totally with you on 95% of these. Especially the soundtrack thing--I often write scenes based around a particular song, and there are certain songs that i can't listen to without writing in my head. Makes for some somewhat distracted driving occasionally. But as a mother, I must say, I find no creative possibilities in a dirty diaper......

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: April 19th, 2010, 7:07 pm
by Robin
I am so glad that I am not alone here! Here's one:

After sending out queries, you check your email and voicemail every 2-3 minutes in hopes of landing an agent and then when you get one, you dont believe it :)

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: April 20th, 2010, 12:23 pm
by dios4vida
...you leap out of bed like a ninja screaming "I've got it! I've got it!" and it doesn't even wake up your spouse anymore.

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: April 23rd, 2010, 7:54 pm
by Joel Q
1 You sit in meetings and wonder what each person would do if... orks entered, a spacehip landed, if Satan walked in, vampires, zombies, wizards, etc...

2 People don't take your "usually" seat at the coffee shop.

3 You wonder what would happen if your HR department every read your email.

Re: You Know You're a Writer When...

Posted: April 23rd, 2010, 8:12 pm
by Bettelynn McIlvain
we write. Therefore, I am a writer.