"You might be a writer if . . ." contest
For some Friday fun, and in homage to Jeff Foxworthy, I've come up with a writer's version of his classic "You might be a redneck if. . ." (All the ones I've written below apply to me. Scary, huh?) And for fun, let's keep adding to the list. Respond to the blog with your own "you might be a writer if. . ." And the one that makes me laugh out loud will win a totebag with the cover of Bewitched & Betrayed on it, with other assorted book goodies. You can keep adding comments to the blog throughout the weekend (in case you come up with more/funnier entries). I'll pick the winner Sunday night and post their name on Monday morning -- along with the Bewitched & Betrayed snippet of the week. Don't email me with your entries, just put them in the COMMENTS section of this post -- that way everyone can enjoy all of the entries.
Here's my list. . .
You might be a writer if. . .
You sleep with pen and paper next to your bed -- and the stove and the couch and the dining table and the shower and the toilet and the. . .
You have a favorite punctuation mark. My editor's trying to wean me off of em dashes -- good luck with that.
You have a favorite pen. Uniball Signo 207 with the comfi-grip in black ink. Uh, what do you mean there are other colors?
You get caught up in plotting your next scene and put the cereal in the fridge, and the milk in the pantry.
The stacks of your old manuscripts and rejection letters officially constitutes a fire hazard.
You desperately want Crayola tub markers so you can write down all that great dialog that comes to you in the shower.
You love restaurants that put a big sheet of paper over the table cloth and leave you with a handful of crayons.
You're talking to a real, living, breathing person and suddenly stop and listen because one of your characters interrupted you.
You think sleep is way overrated. Who needs more than three hours anyway?
Your novels are backed up on your laptop, your husband's laptop, two thumb drives, and you're seriously toying with the idea of getting a safe deposit box.
And finally, you know your a writer if you look at yourself and see a writer. Everyone else looks at you and sees an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive insomniac with a pen fetish.
Those are some of mine. Fess up and tell everyone some of yours. ; ) The entry I find the funniest wins the tote bag.
Here's my list. . .
You might be a writer if. . .
You sleep with pen and paper next to your bed -- and the stove and the couch and the dining table and the shower and the toilet and the. . .
You have a favorite punctuation mark. My editor's trying to wean me off of em dashes -- good luck with that.
You have a favorite pen. Uniball Signo 207 with the comfi-grip in black ink. Uh, what do you mean there are other colors?
You get caught up in plotting your next scene and put the cereal in the fridge, and the milk in the pantry.
The stacks of your old manuscripts and rejection letters officially constitutes a fire hazard.
You desperately want Crayola tub markers so you can write down all that great dialog that comes to you in the shower.
You love restaurants that put a big sheet of paper over the table cloth and leave you with a handful of crayons.
You're talking to a real, living, breathing person and suddenly stop and listen because one of your characters interrupted you.
You think sleep is way overrated. Who needs more than three hours anyway?
Your novels are backed up on your laptop, your husband's laptop, two thumb drives, and you're seriously toying with the idea of getting a safe deposit box.
And finally, you know your a writer if you look at yourself and see a writer. Everyone else looks at you and sees an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive insomniac with a pen fetish.
Those are some of mine. Fess up and tell everyone some of yours. ; ) The entry I find the funniest wins the tote bag.
posted by Lisa Shearin at
7:09 AM
47 Comments:
After a long search, the toothpaste is found in the fridge.
Tine
...after ten minutes of trying to remind a friend about an event that happened in your lives, you realize that it actually happened in one of your characters lives.
You know you're a writer if...
...you spend hours agonizing over whether to use the word "fire" or "flames."
...the only time you don't have a pen behind your ear is when you're using it to write or you're asleep.
...you participate in "You might be a writer if" contests on the internet.
You laugh out loud randomly at something someone said - to then realise people are looking at you strangely as it was your character who spoke.
People have to call your name several times to get your attention, while you're staring blankly at a teacup with a smile on your face, while a scene plays out in your head.
You wish your character had a physical form so you could give them a hug, because their life is just so complicated. Aww, poor guy!
You consider giving up TV/books/any semblance of life, because "watching" your characters is much more exciting - they are just so damn funny!
However, you might be crazy if you do any/all of the above, yet haven't actually written anything yet. >.>
(I exaggerated most of those, I'm not that bad. Though I haven't really written anything yet, that bit's true)
Any time you lie down to try and take a nap, you end up writing a chapter in your head instead--then have to jump up and write it down. (And half the time you try to sleep at night.)
And I loves me my em-dashes! They'll have to pry them out of my cold, dead hand.
When your cats talk to you, your characters talk to you, and you talk to yourself--and you answer them all back. Out loud.
When people invite you out on a Friday night, and you can't go, becuase you're writing. And that's a GOOD thing.
When you put a message on your answering machine that says, "If I don't answer the phone, I'm probably writing. I'll call you back...eventually."
...you're walking to the store half a mile away and halfway there the perfect solution to the plot problem pops into place and you must postpone the store and rush back to get it written.
You stop talking mid-sentence and run from the room in hopes to get the scene typed before its gone.
You debate jumping out of the shower to write down the wonderful thing your character told you.
You enter " You might be a writer if.... contests"
You can't concentrate at work because you are having a conversation in your head with one of your characters.
You emerge from the office dazed not sure where you are because you've spent the last two days engrossed in your characters "world".
Your spouse knows that he/she is lucky to get a hast nod when you're engrossed in one of your projects.
...you have one-sided arguments with your word processing software about what are and aren't words... which you win with a single phrase: "add to dictionary."
(Word and I have had the "scry" word-or-not-word argument for years. Don't worry, I beat it into submission.)
..you critic someone elses books like you would your own..
..when your on the bus and your talking to yourself to everyone else but in your head your having a convo with your main character...
..when you prefer to have conversations with your characters then anyone else because they're more entertaining..
... when your significant other tries to get you to change the name of the love interest in your story to their own name so that you'll spend more time thinking about them.
...When you can't sleep because your characters won't shut up.
...When you realize everyone is looking at you strangely because you were scripting out a dramatic scene in your head--and making all the corresponding facial expressions.
...when you finally come up for air after two days of writing, and are shocked to see YOUR face in the mirror... ("What the... Who the heck is that?")
...you've had long conversations with strangers on the best way to kill someone or ruin someone's life. I'm surprised there's not a warrant for my arrest yet.
...people watch what they say around you for fear that it'll end up in your writing.
...interruptions mean death.
...you wonder how nonwriters can live without writing. A world without characters and scribbling thoughts in the middle of the night and running to the nearest pen and paper when inspiration hits? What kind of world is that? Not one I want to live in.
These are great! Keep 'em coming.
This comment has been removed by the author.
You don't have things like hands, arms, or legs. You have go anywhere writing surfaces.
Shoes can also be relabeled as go anywhere writing surfaces
One person's trash becomes your place to write your plot outline
You have to constantly check on which things are real, which things you dreamed, which things you wrote, which things you imagine and which things you read somewhere else!
You have a collection of old napkins and paper place mats with writing on them.
You have ever had a conversation with a someone and talk to them about a character of yours like they were real.
Just a minute really means just a few hours.
A crisis is when you can't find a pen or all the ones you are carrying won't work
the line between reality and the reality you're writing about just about vanishes
You don't count sheep you chase and collect plot bunnies. True this doesn't help you sleep but after all sleep is for other people!
You know the Geography of your written world better than of the actual world.
You get so into writing that you don't remember what season it is currently outside.
...ten seconds after you say somethng, you're already rephrasing it in your mind.
...you spend half spend more on paper, ink, and postage than on anything else.
...you perpetually have ink stains on your fingers.
...you go to the mailbox solely in search of SASEs
...you learned the difference between to lay and to lie and your day-to-day life is 180% more giggle filled for it.
You might be a writer if...
every person you see becomes a potential character in your next book.
you proof read your text messages before sending it! OR you proof read all incoming messages and send them back to the sender after editing it!
when you ask for pens and paper for Christmas.
You might be a writer if...
You spend most of your reading time deciding that you could either do better than what you just read, or that you could NEVER write as well as what you just read.
If you have EVER referred to your internal editor as being a separate person.
If you have ever called your internal editor an A-hole or worse.
You might be a writer if...
you have a T-shirt that says: Careful. You might end up in my novel.
you have ever wished that you could type out a scene as fast as your mind thought it.
NaNoWriMo is NOT optional!
If you have ever read On Writing by Stephen King.
if the celebrity you want to meet most is an author!
(Saw Ray Bradbury once and was moved to tears.)
you have ever have ever grilled someone who has read your work to ask about plotting and pacing.
I know it's been said, but it holds truth.
IF YOU DON'T TRUST YOUR SPELLCHECK!!!!
If you have ever met a particularly annoying person and memorized their nuances so that you could kill them in effigy in your story later. (And you made it blooooody.)
You have ever written something that has made you cry as you are typing it.
if you have people you consider 'writing buddies'.
and if those writing buddies told you about this blog on Twitter. :D
HI SUSHI!!!!
... that intense expression of concentration you wear at work isn't focus on your job--you're plotting chapter 13 and the climatic action scene coming up.
You know what is truly scary about all this....I'm not a writer, I'm a high school social studies teacher and everything except the em dashes applies to me and lesson planning..........I once accidentally planned a lesson based on a homework assignment another teacher teaching a completely different subject in my room had put on the board for her class. How's that for obsessive compulsive?
... it takes you fifteen minutes to write a two-line e-mail because you can't stop revising it
You might be a writer if you drive past your exit on the freeway because you're plotting your novel's climax.
You might be writer if you are addicted to post it notes.
if you scribble on napkins, paper towels or anything that will take ink.
if you would rather spend time with your created characters than any of your real life friends or family.
...you repeatedly e mail yourself from work with a story idea because you're sure you will forget it otherwise.
...you have more pens in your purse than money.
...every one of your Facebook status messages contains some form of the word "write.'
You might be a writer if. . .
you are involved in a really good kiss and you realize your brain is describing it all as you go so you can write it down later on paper.
I haven't done this. Really. (don't tell my husband)
you might be a writer if...
You put yourself to sleep (or force yourself to sleep) by running through various scenarios your characters could experience in your mind.
instead of paying attention to calculous... or history... or science... or dodgeball in PE you plan the next part of your book, and purposely allow yourself to get hit so you can write down your ideas in the notebook you have stashed in the gym under the bleachers.
you know your a writer if
...you randomly say that (enter character's name) needs to die while eating breakfast.
...you tell your friends all about a character and than when they ask to meet him/her realize you never told them it wasn't a real person
You think your collage professors are giving you writing prompts... and you're taking Ecology.
(Hey, present tense, cannot use the word `I'. How is that NOT a writing prompt.)
when you have a child you name them after your characters
...you spend weeks world building for a short story.
… you can’t spell (you have dyslexia) but you still want to correct the spelling in library books.
… when you have dyslexia and you own three dictionaries but it’s almost impossible to look up a word because you can’t spell it to begin with!
… when you love Google because it guesses quite nicely at the word you MEANT to spell!
… you threatened someone you dislike with “I’m going to kill you in my next book!”
… you throw a book across the room because they stole your plot line!
… you agonize over what to call the bathroom when your character needs to go!
… when your dreams take place in a world you built for a novel.
… when you find yourself trying to find out how to make cheese and soap because your modern character is stuck 600 years in the past and can’t LIVE without them!
… when you KNOW MSWord as it in for you!
… when you spend more time thinking up the name of a character than your first born child.
… when your vocabulary is bigger than almost anyone you know and you keep using words that cause them to stare at you blankly!
… when you shout at the TV when newscasters use the wrong tense of a word!
you are still currently single because you have yet to meet a man/woman that you find better or more attractive/appealing to you than your lead male or female character.
… you threatened someone you dislike with “I’m going to kill you in my next book!”
Done that.
you have a T-shirt that says: Careful. You might end up in my novel.
Ooooh! They make those?
You know your a writer if...
someone says something interesting and you pull out a notebook, ask them to repeat it then put it in your book while they look at you strangely
You hand in a high school paper, the teacher looks at it, says what the hell and who the hell is this person, you look at it and quickly exchange a plot sequence for your actual essay, all because you thought you could multitask...
Done this once or twice...
Here's where I got my T-shirt:
http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/whatonearth/Item_Careful-Or-Youll-End-Up-In-My-Novel-Shirts_AV1741G_ps_dpr.html
I need a couple of extra ones. I like to wear mine while I write and well...it can get a little 'ripe' during NaNoWriMo!
This contest was too much fun!
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