You Know You’re a Writer When …
You Know You’re a Writer When …
What does it really mean to be a “real” writer?
Many people hesitate to call themselves a “real” writer. They often think they need to be published to be a real writer — that they need to give readings, speak at conferences, earn a living from their work — even when they’ve been writing for years.
I don’t like money or the professionalization of an activity to be a validation for anything, especially an act as sacred and fundamental to being human as creativity. That’s why I like this simple definition of being a “real” writer: a writer is one who writes.
And yet …
Being a writer is really more than that, isn’t it? The more you write, the more you know that the act of writing weaves its way into your being to create a quite unique, wonderful, and sometimes peculiar creature.
That’s why I love the NaNoWriMo forum conversation around this theme, “You know you’re a writer when …”. (NaNoWriMo is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month if you don’t know).
Here are some definitions I culled from the forums:
“You know you’re a writer when you can eat a bowl of ice cream and write about a dead body at the same time.”
~ Gnomee
“You know you’re a writer when your search history is full of baby name websites for naming characters.”
~ I_write_melodrama_not_tragedies
“You know you’re a writer when you see your sister for the first time in 13 years and immediately start wondering how you can work those feelings into your story.”
~ JGastler
“You know you’re a writer when you carry a tiny notebook everywhere in case inspiration hits when you are away from your computer.”
~ Kristinaesque
“You know you’re a writer when you’re talking to someone and simultaneously thinking about your current project, and somehow the two trains of thought meld together and you verbally spew out some confusing sentence into the conversation, successfully confusing the other person.”
~ Rhova
“You know you’re a writer when you THINK about writing, start writing, get distracted while writing, get back to writing, doze off while writing, wake up, and wonder what in God’s name that last sentence you wrote was supposed to be.”
~ PapaBerk
“You know you’re a writer when writing is simultaneously the most frustrating thing to do and the only thing you would ever want to do.”
~ Julia_Leef
“You know you’re a writer when you hate your story one day and love it the next.”
~ LOVE_IS_LOVE
“You know you’re a writer when you sit at your computer making faces to no one to try on your character’s expressions and see if they are right and work out how to write them!”
~ Gnomee
“You know you’re a writer when you can touch type while watching a movie.”
~ Normal_ness
“You know you’re a writer when staring off into space doesn’t mean you’re not working.”
~ Chocolate.chip.muffin
“You know you’re a writer when you come up with alternative ways things could have gone in your favorite shows.”
~ Moonlightbushido
“You know you’re a writer when you feel kind of blah, but you write anyway, and get an energy boost from completing a scene so the rest of the day is not so bad.”
~ Greentea82
“You know you’re a writer when your boss asks how the book you’re writing is coming along, and you ask her if she means the one you’ve been working on for nine almost ten years (sci-fi/fantasy epic) or the series you and your boyfriend have book one out on the net for already.”
~ saffronangel
“You know you’re a writer when you keep an ear out wherever you go for any conversation you can jot down for later use.”
~ Crowmere
“You know you’re a writer when a friend has a certain mannerism and you sit there working out how you’d describe it so you can give it to one of your characters.”
~ EmmaLC1995
“You know you’re a writer when you can wake up in the middle of the night panicking because you had the dream that you forgot to save the document with your story and there is no backup.”
~ Cython
“You know you’re a writer when you have way too many notebooks you ever use cause they’re just so darn nice.”
~ CoinOperatedCthulhu
“You know you’re a writer when you feel guilty every time you let a day go by and you didn’t write something. Even if you planned it that way.”
~ Wolfyone
“You know when you’re a writer when you are packing for a trip and realize that you packed more notebooks and writing materials than clothes.”
~ AuDragon
“You know you’re a writer when…
You listen to a song for the simple purpose of getting you into the ‘mood’ for that scene
You need to take a deep breath every time someone mixes up they’re, there, and their.
You take personality tests for your characters.”
~ SackClothAndAshes02
Here are a few of mine in closing:
You know you’re a writer when you grab your novel before any photo album when escaping from a fire.
You know you’re a writer when you don’t even question forgoing a pleasurable activity to grind away at your novel on a beautiful summer day.
You know you’re a writer when you know one more cup of coffee might give you a heart attack, but you drink it anyway because you want to finish your novel — finally!
How do you know when you’re a writer?
You Know You’re a Writer When … was originally published in Friends of National Novel Writing Month on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.