I once saw the actor Morgan Freeman speak at a university in Oxford in the UK. He was asked what he would have done if he had never been an actor, to which he replied, ‘I would have still acted in some way. If you are an actor you act and if you are a writer you will write because that is who you are.’
So what makes you a writer? For me and probably you, writing is where I am happiest and where my passion is found. But how do you know for sure? Are there certain behaviours that you can find in all writers? I believe there are. I have listed them below, so how many you recognise in yourself? Be honest.
1. Your house resembles a library where books of all genres are scattered on every surface. You can read a book in a few hours because your thirst for books is as strong as the coffee you drink, and your office floor is covered in scrunched up paper from rewrites of plot and characterisations.
2. Any time spent not writing is spent thinking about writing.
3. Your desk is covered in notebooks filled with scribbled notes. In fact, it doesn’t stop there, you have pieces of notepaper everywhere, handbag, car, and under your pillow, just in case that idea comes to you in your sleep. Notebooks are stockpiled like a squirrel hoards their nuts.
4. You cannot speak to anyone or attend any event without wondering how the person or situation could somehow be used in your next piece of writing. Everyone you meet is a potential character for your next book and you study their mannerisms with the intensity only matched by a Secret Service agent.
5. You question everyone to the point of interrogation on every aspect of their lives for the same reason above.
6. You have spent hours sitting at a blank computer screen, biting your lip whilst uttering the mumbles of a half-baked plot, wondering what the opening sentence should be. Once you have nailed the first sentence, you are off like a greyhound out of the stalls. Now there is no stopping you.
7. You prefer reading a book to watching television and wonder why nobody else shares your passion for the written word.
8. You love words and place them together to create something of beauty, just like an artist creates a painting. You can type and type and not care what the time of day is, your wrists ache but you type through the pain because you are in the middle of a pivotal stage of the plot.
9. If one of the characters acts immorally, it affects you as if it were a member of your family. You live and breathe your characters' lives. Their wellbeing or downfall is in your hands and you take this responsibility very seriously until the last word is typed.
10. Your life would not be complete without it. You try to stop writing, but the ideas still flow in your mind. Admit that it is in your blood and the world would be quite dull without us writers.
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