You Know You're a Writer When...

Believe it or not, some writers don't know that they're writers. Since there are so many different types, it can be more than a little difficult to spot a real writer among all the people that simply put words to paper, especially if they don't know it themselves. There are, however, a few hallmarks of a true writer, and I'll list them here. (As should be obvious from the first one, this is for all you writers who are well aware of what you are too.)

You know you're a writer when...

1. You can prescribe every song on the radio to a scene in your book.
2. It often looks like you're talking to yourself, but actually you're testing out dialogue between your characters.
3. You have a favorite writing utensil and notebook type.
4. It messes you up to continue a work in a different medium than you started in (switching from pencil to pen, or even just one pen to another, for instance).
5. You run through conversations with your friends in your head and edit them to flow better.
6. Your friends have taken to correcting themselves so you don't have to.
7. You twitch when people say things like, "That girl and I is."
8. You can't stand electronic books.
9. When you finish a test, you take out a notebook instead of a book.
10. You find yourself in debates with your teachers about the correctness of starting a sentence with a conjunction.
11. Handing over the first finished manuscript to a reader/editor is an incredibly painful process, not because you don't want them to read it, but because you don't trust them not to tear off the back cover or fold down the pages.
12. You prefer not to answer the question, "What is your book about?" because you would like to go home within the next four hours.
13. People tell you that you talk too much.
14. You take an extreme dislike to some movies, and you don't really know why. (This is usually because it either isn't a very good story or it didn't end well.)
15. You are either absolutely terrified of people or you find them fascinating, or some strange mix of both.
16. You read. You read all the time. There is always a book on you, and it seems like you're always in the middle of it.
17. Your conscience sounds suspiciously like your main character.
18. You dance around the room in excitement when you finally figure out how to end that chapter that you've been working on for five days.
19. You are reading a scene in a classic novel and suddenly realize that the strange situation actually probably happened to the writer.
20. You don't have a favorite book.