Signs & Symptoms You Could Be an Author...

OK, a bit of light-hearted teasing, let's-poke-fun-at-authorly-types post today!

If you're a reader, it might give you some insight into your favourite authors and their behaviour.

If you're an author, I wonder how many of these apply to you?

• You're constantly editing! Any time you see a grammar or spelling error - on a street sign, an email, someone's social media post, while judging a competition entry, a written message left you by someone in your family - you just can't stop the automatic impulse to find a red pen and correct the mistake!

• Curiosity is your middle name. You're always watching what's happening around you, particularly in a public place. You notice things the average Joe doesn't - the mismatched socks on someone's feet, the odd tattoo on someone's arm, an out of place object...all provide fodder for your "ideas" file on your computer.

• You're ALWAYS daydreaming (which is part of the creative process, right?!?!). How many times have friends and family caught you staring off into space and called your name wondering what on earth you're doing? Scenes and characters having conversations with you are constantly running through your head like movies. There's no such thing as being bored, not when you can zone out and daydream.

• You're a walking thesaurus - never short of ways or words to describe people, places or things. And you're always thinking about how to describe things!

• You listen in on conversations. How many times have you sat at a cafe, or been walking around a mall or at a family gathering and you overhear snatches of conversation or secretly listened in to the people talking the next table over intrigued by their choice of topic. The result - your imagination runs riot as you work out how to incorporate some of it into your next book!

• People approach you to help them with applications or projects because "you're the writer or the creative one".

• 
  You find grammar jokes hilarious.

• You think about your WIP whenever you have a spare moment, travelling to work, when you're shopping, during boring meetings, as you go to sleep at night, when you wake up...

• Guilt plagues you when you haven't written anything for a day. Or you get an idea and start frantically searching for a pen and something to write it down on...in the supermarket, while on a date, mid-conversation...

• Writing is an obsession, not a hobby. You just have to write despite knowing published authors aren't "overnight successes", the chances of being the next Nora Roberts/E.L.James/J.K.Rowlings/Stephanie Meyer are inconceivable, earning a million dollar contract is as rare. You'll continue to write no matter what.

So, if you're an author, can you add any signs or symptoms to this list? :-)