Back By Popular Demand
Yes, four emails last week from lurkers asking for its return . . . it's time to play . . . (Theme Song Music Please)
You Know You're a Writer When . . . .
You know how it goes. Chime in at any time.
I'll go first.
You know you're a writer when . . .
You even DREAM about writing.
Last night, I had a dream . . . I went into a one-room schoolhouse where a Unitarian Church service was occurring. (I am not a Unitarian, but I have been to services at a Unitarian Church before.) The minister was a woman, and she began talking, and I noticed I was sitting at a school desk (makes sense since the service was in a schoolhouse). I looked to my left, and there was a man in his 20s, with long hair, and he was working on a novel. We ended up talking, and I asked him to join my writers' group. He showed me his novel--it was all about war. I started READING his novel, and it took place during Vietnam, and it was quite good. I left the schoolhouse and started going about my life--went to the movies, went for a walk in Manhattan (which had somehow morphed into my dream). And everywhere I went, pages of his novel kept appearing--and HE kept appearing. And there was a single line about a kiri tree and a bird in the tree. I actually had to look it up this morning, and apparently it is a tree that grows in China and was used by the Japanese in WWII for creating their aircraft. I didn't know that I knew about a kiri tree, but apparently THAT bit it knowledge is tucked somewhere in my brain because it appeared in this man's novel in my dream. I could go on, but when I woke up (I have been awake since 3:30 a.m.--can you tell? Insomnia.) . . . I was very profoundly struck by the fact that you REALLY know you're a writer when you dream about writing.
You know you're a writer, too, when . . . your desk is a map of your deadlines--three days' worth of coffee mugs and assorted trails of toast crumbs, like Hansel and Gretel walked across your papers.
You know you're a writer when . . . you realize everyone in your life had better live to a ripe old age, because you know if the cops every took your computer, the searches alone would help a jury of your peers convict you: murder methods, death by poison, cyanide, faking your own death.
So . . . finish the sentence. You know you're a writer when . . . .
19 comments:
I'm with you last night, apparently.
You know you're a writer when every time you wake up during the night (which was often) your brain is obsessing about story query ideas.
Mark:
I hear you. Two a.m. . . . at least 50% of my nights, I'm staring at the ceiling, thinking.
E
You know you're a writer when you read a book and think "this author should really be showing instead of telling."
You know you're a writer when you see your own mistakes in others work.
You know you're a writer when you spend way too many hours every day reading writers blogs!
amy:
I have the last one bad. And I have a hard time reading fiction because of the first two. :-)
E
You know you're a writer when the last thing you want to get in the mail is an envelope you addressed to yourself.
Stephen:
LOL! That's a great and totally new one!!!! :-)
E
Stephen, that's hilarious!
You know you're a writer when you can't stop thinking of ways an author could've phrased things better in the book you're reading. And you want to tell them.
You know you are a writer when you spend the majority of your time thinking about how you can use the things in your life that are going wrong as a way to torture... I mean test and strengthen you MC in your WIP.
Melanie... ROFL... I've been doing that since I could read books as a child. That is what had me get into writing in the first place. I figured that if the other writers weren't going to write books the way I wanted them, I would have to do it myself.
Stephen... LALALALA I can't hear you... LALALALALA.
You know you're a writer when:
You can't even watch a movie without breaking it down into inciting incidents, first, second, and third act climaxes, dark moments, etc . . .
Melanie:
That's why I love nonfiction.
:-)
ewoh:
I love those torturous epiphanies!!!
E
alyson:
I SOOOOOOOOOO do that. I watch and think--ah ha . . . that's how they are "showing" his character in less than a minute of screen time!!!!
E
...when an extravagant night out means getting to go to the bookstore and Staples.
...when your back lawn (luckily hidden by a privacy fence) could be described as "amber waves of grain."
...when a great deal of your conversations are with people who technically don't exist.
haha yeah I've been having a lot of dreams lately. Dreams about writing, dreams about marketing, dreams about publishing. I think it's fair to say my brain is saturated in writing right now.
Jude:
Ooooooooooooooh, Borders AND Staples. You are rockin'.
E
Zoe:
My brain is definitely on saturation mode.
E
You know you're a writer when the voices in your head have an attitude, and won't let you sleep.
...when you see or hear something in the real world, and jot it down cause it sparked an idea in your make believe world.
...see characters when you hear a song.
...daydream a lot and move around in a daze, half of you in a scene, the other half making a bed.
...you'd rather stroll the aisle of an Office Max, or book store instead of shopping for clothes. LOL.
ladonna:
I hate to shop. Hate it. But I could easily lose hours in a bookstore.
E
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