Writers are a peculiar breed. Even though we live all over the globe in a variety of different habitats and abodes (and display a surprising range of personality traits) as a collective bunch, writers are often marred by a particular set of idiosyncrasies… like the things that drive us bat shit crazy:
1. Copies, all the copies
Like when you realise mid-way through a major edit that the Google Doc you uploaded last week is NOT THE RIGHT ONE. Because, duh, you emailed yourself a copy last night and you also saved a different version to your USB stick shortly after that. But wait… are you sure that’s the right one??? Which one is it!?
2. Scrivener
Because you don’t have it and every other writer has it and they keep telling you how freaking amazing it is and there’s this thing called binder and you should totally ‘get it RIGHT NOW because it’s on sale.’ So you tell them ‘oh my God I know, I really need to buy it!’ And then you never do, but they just won’t let it go.
3. Handwriting
Because you can’t do it anymore. You’ve been so busy typing that your penmanship is now a messy suroul. Sorry scrawl. But it’s not like you can actually handwrite a book and then make $1 billion USD, right??
4. Your cat
Who can forget the time he ninja-jumped onto your keyboard and somehow, miraculously, deleted a huge junk of your manuscript without any chance of recovery? And yes, ctlr+z did not work and that copy you uploaded to Google Docs STILL ISN’T THE RIGHT ONE.
5. Hello
It’s your cat again. He just ate your manuscript. You know the failsafe copy you printed for emergencies and stashed in a secret, locked cabinet?
6. Your parents
When they tell everyone ‘you’ll be the next J.K Rowling’ and you’re super upset with them because… you thought you were the next J.K Rowling.
7. Potatoes. Yes, potatoes
Remember that time you dreamt up the most unusual and unique story in the history of the world?? It was about this guy who goes to Mars, gets left behind, grows some potatoes and then all of his astronaut friends come to the rescue. You were going to call it The Potato Man but… ANDY WEIR WROTE THE SAME DAMN THING SEVEN YEARS AGO AND NOW IT’S A MOVIE AND HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT!?
8. Emails
For all those times your heard a familiar ‘ping’ from your phone and you just knew it was from that big time editor you queried 2 years ago declaring their love for your book/poem/six word story. But it was God damn Goodreads again. Apparently The Book Bound Society was about to read P.S I Still Love You.
9. Writing rules
Like, you know, that adverb-rule Stephen King told you about? But did he also remind you that adverbs don’t always end in –ly? Yep, you now have to do another seek and destroy because someone is not ‘very tired’ they are ‘exhausted’. Obviously.
10. Editing
Um… God speed, good and faithful servant.
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