"You Know You Are a Writer If..."
Mar. 30th, 2010 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladlloydThere's an ongoing discussion over on LinkedIn, in the Informed Ideas for Writer's group, titled: "You Know You're a Writer If..." that was posted by Angela Neal. (Note that LinkedIn requires membership, but has a free option and is a great way to stay connected with the professionals with whom you've worked.) Angela is collecting the responses on LinkedIn, for a blog post on Writer's Remorse. So far as I can tell, the comments on LinkedIn are entirely discreet from the post and comments on Writer's Remorse.
Here are the lines I came up with in response to Angela's discussion topic on LinkedIn:
... you analyze every experience, especially physical and emotional pain, so you'll get it right when you write about it.
... you contract typhoid fever and consider it research. (Yes, it really happened. No, I didn't deliberately seek out the condition. Just don't drink the water.)
... you crack a rib and consider it research.
... you hear on NPR that a story about an apocalypse can't be beautiful, and decide to prove the speaker wrong.
... you categorize everything you read into one of two categories: I can do better than that, and I'll never be that good.
... you get so lost in writing a single paragraph that three hours go by unnoticed.
... you spend a year crying over a keyboard without writing a word.
... you become a technical writer, because that way you can write and still make a living.
I have to add one more thing: ... you tell your husband you'll watch a TV show with him, and then spend the next half hour working on your blog post.
Here are the lines I came up with in response to Angela's discussion topic on LinkedIn:
... you analyze every experience, especially physical and emotional pain, so you'll get it right when you write about it.
... you contract typhoid fever and consider it research. (Yes, it really happened. No, I didn't deliberately seek out the condition. Just don't drink the water.)
... you crack a rib and consider it research.
... you hear on NPR that a story about an apocalypse can't be beautiful, and decide to prove the speaker wrong.
... you categorize everything you read into one of two categories: I can do better than that, and I'll never be that good.
... you get so lost in writing a single paragraph that three hours go by unnoticed.
... you spend a year crying over a keyboard without writing a word.
... you become a technical writer, because that way you can write and still make a living.
I have to add one more thing: ... you tell your husband you'll watch a TV show with him, and then spend the next half hour working on your blog post.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 07:27 am (UTC)Oh, that is so true!
So are the others, actually, but that was the one that jumped out at me as being something I hadn't consciously recognised in myself before. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 01:56 am (UTC)Yes, it's so fun to read a bunch of these and see that my own quirks are shared by other writers.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 09:52 am (UTC)"... you categorize everything you read into one of two categories: I can do better than that, and I'll never be that good."
I'd like to think of it positively though, I see it has work I don't have to do now that someone's done it better than I! Of course, I've been saying that since I put down my pen seven years ago. Too many good writers still to read...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 01:58 am (UTC)Strangely enough, I never see writing in quite this way. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-02 07:46 am (UTC)Oh, I forgot to thank you for sharing the LinkedIn group. It's just the kind of thing I'm looking for these days!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 02:46 pm (UTC)---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 01:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 02:00 am (UTC)