This week on Twitter, I posted this Tweet:

tried to decorate a room for my Regency novel in my head when I couldn’t sleep last night….#amwriting#youknowyouareawriterwhen

To me, this is perfectly normal behaviour. Who wouldn’t try to decorate the main room of an 1813 Whitechaple fortune teller at 3 o’clock in the morning? But looking at it objectively, I can see that perhaps it is…a trifle odd.

Writers are a unique bunch. In fact, we are heroically unique! In honour of writers everywhere, I have decided to expand my original list of You Know You’re A Writer When…

So, here it is:

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A WRITER WHEN…

1. You will argue the correct meaning of a word with your husband for over twenty minutes

2. You cut out pictures in magazines that best describe your setting

3. You see someone in Wal Mart and think ‘that’s what my character looks like, right there!’

4. You see a couple having an argument as you drive by and you immediately start playing the game: what happens next?

5. While grocery shopping, your characters are talking back and forth in your head. (And they’re so loud, its a wonder you can purchase everything on your list…I call this phenomenon “Writer’s Daze”)

6. You get excited when you find [insert arcane detail here]. For me, its something like a map of the Napoleon Empire or a list of plays from Drury Lane in the 1800’s.

7. Before you go to sleep, you ask your subconscious to provide you with an answer to your plot problem

8. You consult the Tarot for the same (see above)

9. It takes a while for you to proclaim your identity as “A Writer” but once you do, you can’t shut up about it

10. Even the clerk at the local gas station knows you’re trying to get published

11. All your co-workers know what you’re writing and/or your current word count

12. You work through all ‘your issues’ by writing them into a novel. (The story might take place on an astroid colony 1000 years from now but that’s your old nemesis from high school, D.B., getting mangled by a particle beam!)

Writers, am I missing any? Add your own below!