You Might Be a Writer if...

Over the years I’ve collected these, but it’s been a while since I posted it. How many are true for you? Have any to add?

You might be a writer if…

• The people in your head are sometimes more real than the ones sitting around the dinner table—and far more interesting.
• You've just told the coolest, funniest thing EVER and then realize it was something that happened in your book and NOT in real life.
• You at a loss of what to add to the conversation during family get-togethers because all your exciting happenings are things your characters did. You could brag about sitting at the computer or typewriter but no one else would consider that exciting. (little do they know)
• You spend more time in restaurants listening to other people's conversations than participating in your own.
• You overhear snippets of conversation everywhere you go, and automatically try to intuit the rest of the story.
• All such snippets are mentally filed for future use.
• You’ve ever heard yourself say, “ooh, good phrasing. I’m gonna have to use that one…” Then you actually used it.
• Every time someone uses an interesting turn of a phrase, you say, "That would be a good title for a book," and you actually use it.
• You say something witty and your loved ones tell you it would make a great line in one of your books
• You actually go write it down and use it.
• You might be a writer if you're in the middle of having a root canal, and all you can think of is how that dentist hovering over you with drill in hand would make a gorgeous romance hero for your next book!
• You’ve ever noticed that if everything paper (books, magazines, manuscripts, etc.) was removed from your home, the place would be bare—and spotless.
• All of your bedspreads have ink stains on them.
• Every purse you own, every room of your house, and every car you might possibly ride in is stocked with notebooks and pens, just in case. This includes by the bed and in every bathroom.
• You’ve actually made notes in every single one of those notebooks.
• You have a file on your hard drive of story starts, and another one in the filing cabinet for those you put on paper. 
• You’ll throw away last year’s tax receipts and your kids’ straight A report cards before thinning out that folder.
• You are intimately familiar with the terms POV, FLE, mss, HEA, HFN, TSTL heroines and have several WIP’s.  If you’re a romance author, you also know about RT, RWA, MOC’s and secret-baby plots.
• You know how many words you type per page—and in which fonts with what margins.
• You’ve memorized the submissions guidelines for at least three publishers.
• You spend more per year on books than on shoes.
• You voraciously read the works of others to learn how they do it. 
• You’ve written at least one novel where the murder victim bears a strong resemblance to your former boss or ex-SO. Even if you don’t write suspense.
• You find yourself wondering, “So how can I get a centaur to be biologically compatible with a mermaid?”, “Do vampires need condoms?”, “Do demons have souls?” or something equally physically or metaphysically improbable.
• You figure out a way to make it happen.
• You’ve ever re-written the ending of a movie in your head and managed to convince yourself that your version was the “real” conclusion.
• You can't watch a movie or read a book without critiquing it. You have trouble reading ANYTHING without a red pen in hand. Fiction. Letters from friends. Menus.
• You find yourself analyzing every plot of every TV show or movie for GMC and analyzing if all scenes actually belong in it or are superfluice.
• You know what superfluice means.
• You know 15 synonyms for "blue" and wonder if there is another word for Thesaurus.
• You jump out of the shower sopping wet and run to your computer trailing puddles, because you're afraid the resolution to the scene (or the next line) might fade from your brain before you finish shaving your legs.
• You’ve ever jumped up from the dinner table yelling, “I'll be RIGHT BACK! I have to write that down.”
• You've ever stopped in the middle of a fight with your SO to "jot something down."
• Every story or bit of gossip you relate to others is populated with incredible depth and detail.
• You start calling your SO or DH by the names of your favorite characters, or you have ever yelled out the name of the character in your current WIP in bed with your SO.
• You're more used to answering to your pen name than your real name.
• You pause when signing your name to anything to figure out which of your three names you are today, or you’ve ever signed a personal check using your pen name.
• There's a war going on inside your head between characters vying for your attention.
• You’ve written a story and somebody paid you money for it.
• You came up with at least one response to this blog post! 

Look for my internet radio interview tomorrow on Flint Talk Radio and find me on Steamed! Wednesday. On Friday, I'll have the amazing and wonderful Sam Cheever on my blog, so you won't want to miss it!