By Josi S. Kilpack
You find using abbreviations when text messaging an offense to your sensibilities.
You sometimes interrupt friends and family during conversation to teach them the correct usage of lay/lie.
You wake up in the morning only to suggest revisions to your subconscious mind for the dream you had during the night.
You accidentally put the name of your current protagonist as a reference on an application--it's the phone number that trips you up.
You have EVER finished a book and thought "I could do better."
Words like characterization, exposition, story arc, resolution and dramatic effect are frequently used even in non-writing conversation.
Your spouse trusts sending you to the mall with a credit card so long as there isn't a bookstore in said mall.
Instead of saving up for a vacation to Disneyland, you have a fund in place so that one day you too might own the Oxford English Dictionary--hard copy and CD.
You ponder the meaning of words like loquacious and rudimentary--how have their definitions changed between the early nineteenth century and today? What is their root language? When was the first usage of such words in modern literature? Can you use them in your current WIP without sounding like a pontificating intellectual?
You have ever read the someones name tag and noted it would be the perfect name for a character. You then asked them to pronounce it for you, pretending you were just curious.
Friends and family hesitate to confide in you for fear a new and improved version of their tragedy or triumph might show up in your current work in progress.
You have an inspiring quote in your house at this very instant by Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thorough or Steven King.
Instead of saying "We'll laugh about this later" you often comfort yourself with "This will make a great scene in a book one day."
AND, last but not least, while reading this, you thought of another one :-) Do share.
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15 comments:
The equivalent of a day spa for you is a day spent at Barnes and Nobles with your laptop, thumb drive and your WOP. Yeah, I wish too.
You spend the first three hours of your day trying to find the perfect word to describe something in a dream you had--the dream that could make the best book you've ever written. Then you ignore anything and everything so you can whip out 50 pages so you don't forget the details of said dream.
I'm embarrassed to admit that nearly every one applies to me. I'm such a weirdo.
Your characters have conversations inside of your head and you laugh at something they said...thus earning yourself rather odd looks from those around you.
You start writing down unique phrases or cool descriptions from other books--not to steal them but to read them later with fondness.
When you hear someone describing an experience they had, and you along with your protagonist can relate--because your character and you have experienced that same thing, IN YOUR BOOK. (that every few have read and know about because the work hasn't broke into print yet)
I guess its like having an imaginary friend or two or twenty!
There are notebooks, scraps of paper, and sticky notes stuffed in a file labeled "Writing Ideas." :)
pretty funny
http://www.nancyreview.blogspot.com/
You start telling a friend about a conversation you had recently...and then realize it was your character who had that conversation.
And yes, I could put a check mark by all of the ones on your list and in the comments.
"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"
--Henry Ward Beecher
#7 is unfortunately too true in my household. Even worse, everyone in the household is bad at it. B&N make a fortune off of us. =]
You're writing dialogue and stop and laugh at it, because you've just realized how funny it is.
You write dialogue and stop and realize how profound it is and you realize you've learned something that you didn't know before.
You collect names and you have baby name books even though you have no plans for future children.
When people call your name several times they finally sigh and say "she's in her own world again."
People stare in wonder at your library.
And yes, several things on that list pertain to me. Like the time I blew a tire in nowhere Montana and I thought "this would make a great column."
You have so many characters in your head that any conversation or event either stirs one of them awake or one of them has a comment about it.
Your young children not only know what words like antagonist mean but they use them in conversation.
You buy a defunct old word processor at the thrift store so your 2 year old will stop wanting to play with your lap top.
I hate to be the geek that comments twice, but I thought of another one that is pertinent to me.
You go to bed with a Christmas-like tickle inside, convinced that what you just wrote is as brilliant as anything anyone has ever written before in the entire canon of literature, only to wake up the following morning, reread what you wrote, and realize with horror that it's the most dreadful prose ever conceived by man.
You find yourself wanting to use examples from your book in conversation or lessons, then realize they only happened in your head.
And yes, I am guilty of almost everything on your list, and the ones in the other comments.
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