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Are You A Writer? Here Are The Signs

By on January 10, 2019

Writers can all get a case of the doubts from time to time, and when they are at their worst, we wonder whether we are cut out for this writing life at all. When we start to procrastinate and haven’t done any writing in ages, or we are suffering from a case of writer's block, it’s easy to start feeling like we should give up.

However all it takes is a bit of time to sit back and reflect, and if you need a bit of a boost to confirm you are a writer, take a look at these signs.

You know you are a writer when:

You have paper and pen by your bed. Late night eureka moments, a brilliant idea just as we’re about to drift off, crazy dreams that make no sense when you read over them in the morning. Whatever your reasons you want to make sure you don’t miss those 3 am bursts of inspiration!

When you are not writing, you are thinking about it. A lot. OK so your whole life doesn’t have to revolve around your writing, but you do spend a helluva lot of time thinking about writing when you're not doing it. Whether mulling over a problematic plot point, talking to your characters or just seeing little bits of inspiration in everyday life, writing tends to take over your headspace more often than not.

You write when you should be working, when you are on holiday and may have even taken a sick day to work on your latest project! So you are dedicated to your day job and all, but there have been times where you might have let your lunch break run over so you can finish that chapter, or have decided to call in sick when you’ve only got a bit of a cold so you can keep writing. Even on holiday you can’t help but keep working on your project, so you always stay in the zone.

When you write time passes insanely quick. There is nothing quite as surprising as being in the writing ‘zone,’ and every writer knows the feeling when they look up from a writing session and hours have gone by even though you could swear you only started a few minutes ago.

Everyone and everything has the potential to end up in your book. The world is your inspiration! Every time you step out of the house you are on high alert, eyes wide open, ears pricked up! Things you see, conversations and interactions you overhear, places you travel, experiences you have - they all have the potential to end up in your novel.

Reading is your most important hobby. Writers love to read. It is their most excellent source of inspiration, motivation and the best way of learning how to improve. You can’t really be a writer if you don’t love to read!

Things you hate most in life include a blank page, editing your finished novel, talking about your writing, word counts, showing versus telling, Amazon rankings and the dreaded wait to hear back from publishers.

Your computer/ notebooks are full of weird and wonderful half-baked story ideas, characters, even single sentences or words that you’ll get to one day and turn into something brilliant - probably!

Do any of the above sound like you? What do you think makes someone a writer? We’d love to know!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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