10 Signs That You’re A Novel Writer

1. Your writing day begins by doing something other than writing.

You know how it goes.  You’re geared up to write.  You’ve got the time – no work, family or friends to get in your way.  Just you and your computer.  Problem is that computers aren’t produced simply for struggling writers to produce their masterpieces with.  They have other uses.  For example they make excellent replacements for packs of cards and their processing power makes them ideal for mine detection simulators.  Lets not even get started on the internet.

2. Your definition of research is flexible

Alright, lets start on the internet.  Unless you’re a genius chances are that you’re going to have to do some sort of research for your novel.  And let’s be honest, as resources go the internet is a pretty good one.  Want to know who the twelth president of the United States is?  The internet can help you.  A quick google search and we discover that the answer is ‘Sylvestor Stallone’ (source: Wikipedia).  And it doesn’t stop there.  If it’s a fact about a thing then chances are you can find it on the internet.  Unfortunately, finding facts about things can be addictive.  You’ll start researching your 17th century period novel and end up charting the career history of every cast member of the Breakfast club.  Tip: If your research leads you to Facebook or Twitter you’ve gone too far.

3. You read books and think that you could have done better

This is almost a given if you’ve read a Dan Brown novel.  It’d be unlikely you couldn’t.

4. You own an extensive collection of books about writing books

Like the internet, this can be an addictive timewaster.  If you’re not careful you can end up spending all the time you should be spending writing reading about how you should be spending all your time writing.  Luckily I’ve read pretty much every book on writing ever written so, for the purposes of everyone getting on with their writing, here are the most important bits of advice:  Write.  Write what you know.  If you don’t know, find out, then write what you know.

5. You take a notepad with you

You’ve probably gotten this piece of advice from all those books you’ve been reading about writing.  One thing to remember though – it can be quite difficult to write on the bus.  Also, remember and bring a pen.  And if you’re going to record snippets of people’s conversations it’s impolite to ask them to repeat if you didn’t hear them.

6. You start a blog

You start a blog with the idea that by posting regularly you’ll be writing regularly too.  It doesn’t always work out.

7. You consider joining a writing group

Meeting other people and getting feedback is a pretty good idea.  Unless, like me, you hate other people in which case it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.

8. You’re addicted to the Word Count facility in Word (or Word Processor of choice)

When I’m writing, literally not a second goes by without me checking the word count.  I don’t always even bother finishing the word I’m writing before I’ve counted it.  Writing a novel is a long process and so I need to know exactly how far along I am at any given moment.  On those days where you’re actually productive, it’s great to know that you’ve written loads and loads of words.  On those other days, which I like to call The Majority, it can be quite disheartening to realise that you’ve only written fifty words in three hours.  And then theres those even worse days where you actually lose words and then have to buy a new computer the next day because you’ve set fire to your old one.

9. You regularly abandon projects

It’s the same old pattern.  You have the idea to end all ideas.  “THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD!”, you triumphantly shout out to no one.  Under normal circumstances the usage of All-Caps would irk you but not on this occasion, because this is going to be AWESOME!!!  So you dive into the project.  It becomes your passion, nay, you’re obsession.  Until reality creeps in, you realise someone else has already had that idea and done it much better, or it just wasn’t that good to begin with.  And even if it was a good idea, you’ve got no time right now.  You’ll do it later.  Then you fire up minesweeper and never go back to it.  Never mind, the next idea will be even better.

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