You Know You're a Writer When...

Ok, confession time: Like a mother in frantic "nesting" mode, I've got this weird obsession with getting everything in my apartment clean and organized once it's January 1st.

I mean I'm practically begging my hubby to get rid of the tree and can't wait to take anything down that has anything to do with Christmas. For the record, that doesn't make me some sort of Grinch, I just can't wait to start organizing, well, everything.

Not only does that mean dusting and wiping down everything even potentially dirty, but I love to get rid of stuff I don't need, including any unnecessary e-mails carefully tucked away in various folders.

Now anyone who knows me well knows how I loathe the very sight of e-mail forwards. I hate reading how I'm going to have bad luck if I don't forward something to 10 of my closest friends. Worse yet are the ones with the cheesy, Hallmark card sentimentality and pictures of fuzzy little newborn chicks or lab puppies.

But when I saw this one filed away in my "friends and family folder," a forward titled "You Know You're a Writer When..." I couldn't help but chuckle because, well, so many of these apply to me.

You Know You're a Writer When...(forwarded from KayDicus.com)

• You would rather talk to the voices in your head than the person sitting next to you.

• You know the research librarian’s office, cell and home phone numbers but can’t remember your own.

• Some of the letters on your keyboard are completely worn off.

• You would rather write than go out.

• Your/you’re and their/there/they’re errors send you into an apoplectic fit.

• You get cranky if you don’t get to write.

• You’ve ever said, “The voices are getting louder; I must go write.”

• When talking with others, you mentally edit their dialogue and compose tags and beats.

• You’ve heard/seen something and thought, I need to write that down.

• You’ve ever written a scene, outline, synopsis or character sketch on a restaurant napkin . . . and it wasn’t a paper napkin.

• You wake up in the middle of the night and scramble for the pen and paper you keep next to your bed to write down a scene to make the voices be quiet so you can get some sleep.

• You end an argument with your spouse by saying, “Oh, wait, I have to write this down–this is the perfect conflict for my characters! Now, repeat what you just yelled.”

• Getting the scene finished is more important than food, coffee or the bathroom.

• You have a momentary reality lapse and mention your characters’ situation as a prayer request in Sunday school.

• A blank wall becomes the screen where the scene you’re writing takes place right in front of your eyes.

• The easiest way for you to deal with conflict is to go home and write it into your story.

• You have filed and cross-referenced every issue of The Writer and Writer’s Digest you’ve ever received.

• You purposely eavesdrop when out in public.

• At parties, your method of making conversation is to discover people in the room with interesting occupations (preferably your hero’s or heroine’s) so you can conduct research.

• You listen to the writer’s commentary on every DVD so that you can analyze his/her writing process.

• You have a favorite line from every movie you’ve seen.

• You can’t write because you’re mad at one of your characters.

• You argue with said character.

• You have a folder on your computer labeled “Ideas.” Some of the files within this folder have only one or two words or sentences and while they made perfect sense fifteen years ago, between the software changes in that period of time garbling half the words and your own faulty memory, you have no idea what it means or where you were going with it. But you keep it anyway because you never know, you might remember it eventually.

• You drive three hours to a city where you don’t know anyone, spend another three hours driving around the city, then drive three hours home and decide NOT to set your story there.
  

So be honest, how many of the following apply to you? I know that I'm guilty of at least 20...maybe more.