1. You have at least ten open word documents at a time. As a writer, you are literally always writing. As soon as a good idea pops into your head, you have to to put it down on paper, or on Microsoft Word. Many of the word documents that you have open are probably drafts of the same story written in different points of view, in a different time frame or even from a different perspective. I’m sure a lot of the documents are just sections of a previous work copy and pasted onto a new document to see where it can take you and to see if a whole new story can emerge from just one line. As a writer you are always trying something new with your writing and the crazy amount of constantly open word documents is proof of that concept.
2. Your search history makes you look a little crazy. Writers often have to do research on the topic that they are writing about and since we don’t tend to write about the every day life that we experience, we often have to look up topics like how to dispose of a body or how to build a bomb. As a writer, you probably have some search history that you are not proud to show off and require some explaining. Research is key to a great novel since the author has to know what they are talking about and if you are writing murder mysteries or who-done-its, your search history will look pretty scary.
3. Your computer is constantly running out of storage space. When you try to download or save a new file, that dreaded message of “delete files” comes up and breaks your spirit. You are then forced to go through all of your files and decide which ones have reached the end of the road. Since many files are notes and single sentences, its smart to combine them into one file that’s just called “ideas,” so that you save room on your computer for more of your brilliant ideas.
4. You get emotionally invested in your characters and ideas and have trouble letting them go. We all have bad ideas in writing. Its just part of the process. But sometimes we spend so much time developing the characters and the plot that we have a hard time taking criticism and even scraping scenes that we enjoy. One of the common phrases that you hear in creative writing classes is that “you have to learn to kill your babies.” This basically means that sometimes you have to let a story go even if you have spent all of your time raising these characters and leading them down the right path. Sometimes you get so invested in your work and it becomes a part of you, so when you hear negative criticism and are told to cut a character or a scene, it can literally feel like you are killing something that you created and loved.
5. You own more books than you can count. Writing without reading is like trying to become a singer who doesn’t listen to music. So every good writer has thousands of books that they love and adore and reread many times. Writers are encouraged to steal. Not whole novels and stories, but concepts and styles. Other novels inspire you and you have to read to see how successful authors constructed their own novel. Imitating other authors is one of the best techniques for writers because it allows you to try something new and to take on a voice that you normally would not use. The more that you read, the better writer you become.
