10 Ways to Know You’re a Writer

/ pauljennynyc

You’ve wondered, right?

You’ve asked yourself this question many times and you’re reading this post to find out, “Am I a writer?”

Like a hypochondriac checking out WebMD over and over again, you scour articles and blog posts for the telltale signs and symptoms that you’ve got what it takes to declare yourself a writer.

I do, too. That’s why I came up with this list of 10 Ways to Know You’re a Writer.

After reading the list, click on the links to the other great blog posts and articles that relate to each of these ideas.

Please leave me a comment about which symptoms you come down with most often, or add some new ones of your own.

You Know You’re a Writer if…

10. You take really long showers because you’re working on a writing problem or your fictional characters are having conversations in your head and you’re eavesdropping on them. (I came up with the idea for this blog post while taking a shower this morning.)

9.  Your favorite hashtag on Twitter is #amwriting (<=== or these nine other hashtags).

8. Your friends and family ask you to “pick a movie already” when you’re on Netflix and you tell them, “I’m not picking a movie, I’m reading the synopses.”

7. You check Amazon.com synopses for books that are similar to the one you are writing right now (you also say “synopses” a lot).

6. You have a Pinterest board where you pin cool spaces for writing retreats.

5. When you’re out with friends, instead of engaging in conversation you narrate your life – “Paul sat on his bar stool nursing a half-finished beer. Conversations swirled around him, but he was lost in his thoughts. He should be home writing, but his friends insisted he come out with them to celebrate his latest book, All By Myself’.”

4. You constantly notice grammatical errors in other people’s writing but can’t seem to find them in your own.

3. You love words and could spend hours pouring through 500 billion of them or enjoy lexicography.

2. Your Evernote app, filing cabinet, desktop, etc. is overflowing with so many ideas, photos and articles for future stories and blog posts that it’s hard to find the one you’re looking for when you need it.

1. But the number one way to know you are a writer is – You declare yourself to be one and then sit in the chair and write!

There are a LOT of great 10 Ways to Know articles out there on the internet. My Google search turned up 1,650,000,000 hits in .039 seconds. That makes 16.5 billion things to know. That’s about 2.28 things to know for each person living on Earth today. Here are 10 of the 1.65 billion 10 Ways articles I took a look at for this post.

  1. 10 Ways to Know if You’re Confident – or Arrogant
  2. 10 Ways to Find Happiness
  3. 10 Ways to Know that You’re a Stoner
  4. 10 Ways to Know Very Quickly if your Man is a Psychopath
  5. 10 Ways to Develop Your Personal Style
  6. 10 Ways to Alter Your Consciousness Without Drugs
  7. Top 10 Ways to Annoy the Locals
  8. 10 Ways to Help Your Community in 30 Minutes or Less
  9. 10 Ways to Know You’re Having a Hot Flash
  10. 10 Ways to Be a Great Dad

356 thoughts on “10 Ways to Know You’re a Writer”

  5. Reblogged this on lifeintheline and commented:
    I can relate to no. 4 and 5 a lot. In the past four years I’ve had to give myself permission to be called a writer, because it always feels like I’m a huge fake (same with being a musician). Time to get writing! Brace yourself for some creative non-fiction coming your way!

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    • Yes, madfortea, that’s the toughest one. If you’d like a few suggestions for BIC (butt-in-chair) keep following the blog. I’ve got a few posts planned to cover this! Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your long showers!

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  17. I think the real way to tell if you’re a writer is when you become distressed when you can’t write for some reason. It’s an obsession, an addiction and we absolutely must have our fix.

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  18. I must be a writer because I put my butt in the chair and WRITE! About almost anything and almost anyone and just about any place on the globe. But I gotta fess to number 4. I find other people’s errors. And even when I am sure none exist, my editor finds mine. Ugh!

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  19. I think writing is like reading, the more you read the better you get and the better you get the more you read so likewise, in order to improve as a writer you have to write. Some of what is written might be garbage to be discarded or retooled into something worth reading while other passages might stand out as worthy from the start but you will never know unless you begin to put words down.

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    • Loved it! Great post. Thanks for leaving the link. I cry all the time when reading books. That’s the fun part. Also, the smell and feel of a real book, so far, my Kindle can’t replicate that. I’m going to Tweet out the link to your post. Thanks for stopping by, My Corner of the Library, hope to see you again soon.

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  25. great post! i fit for no.1 and 4 definitely. no 3 as well. i have pinterest for travel pics related to my blog. and no. 10 while thinking of the subject i want to write for the next 2 weeks and how i deliver it in words. i just don’t do amazon thing, twitter and evernote (dunno what the heck evernote is, to be honest) – i only have limited social media platforms.

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    • Thanks for stopping by, GalOnTrip! Evernote is a cool app for keeping thought organized. It’s accessible wherever you are. I don’t work for them or anything, I just really love the app and use it all the time. There is a great new clipping feature, too. If you see something on the web and you want to read it later, just clip it into Evernote and off you go! If you have a chance, write a story for peace. http://wp.me/p4wnLd-kQ

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  27. i,m definitely #1,4(made me laugh) and 8.I sometimes just forget everything when i’m thinking bout ideas or when building words and sentences.(even when i need to go to bathroom). he he..nice post!!

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    • Ha! Yes, that is the one of the toughest things to do. We really have to value and guard our writing time and it’s no fun to feel like you’re ignoring the other person. I always say by taking the time to write I can more fully be there for you when I’m not writing.

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  47. All the others, yes, but #2 especially guilty as charged. Although I’m beginning to think that may be an issue with Evernote. One of the 10 Things I Know About Procrastinating When Writing is Hard is that that is exactly when I decide to revamp my entire tagging system on Evernote… 😉

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