You Know You are a Writer When

It has been said that a writer knows he has made it when people stop asking him what he does for a living. Well, that may be the case for the highly successful author but there is another category of author out there and those of us who fall into that category follow another standard to determine how well we are doing in the writing biz. Thus, I am setting down a few standard truths about the not yet successful authors of this world.

You Know you Are a Writer When

1. people ask you if you make any money as an author. It doesn't matter what your answer is, they won't believe you anyway.
2. people ask you how many books you have sold. If the answer is three or less they will change the subject immediately.
3. everyone wants to know when you are going to get a real job. They will even offer you one.
4. you get falsely accused of plagiarism, and you haven't the slightest idea what the accuser is talking about.
5. you have to repeatedly explain what plagiarism really is.
6. egotists demand you write a special article all about them. You humor them and write the darn thing and then they tell you it's all wrong. Don't throw out the article, just throw out the egotist.
7. poet-laureate wannabes think they can write better poetry than you can and you hate poetry to begin with, so you let them.
8. poet-laureate wannabes think they can write better poetry than you can and you love poetry so you let them.
9. you jokingly do a search for your own name on the internet and you actually find your own name.
10. your fingers automatically assume the A S D F J K L ; position on the keyboard.
11. you constantly assess and re-assess all of your correspondence to make sure your dialogue “works”.
12. a blank screen is your mortal enemy.
13. you spend all of your time trying to figure out how to stretch 200 pages of text to 250 pages, or squish 300 pages into 250 to meet the publishing guidelines.
14. people think your job is easy.
15. people read your first book and ask you to hurry up with the second one.
16. people read your first book and wonder why your wrote your first book.
17. every time you read an email, you automatically correct grammar and spelling.
18. everyone who writes to you is a bad speller, probably on purpose.
19. you have never in your life read your own book.
20. your entire family has read all of your books….for free.