1. The letters on your keyboard have worn off. (I’m completely missing E, R, T, S, D, and H and parts of U, A, G, K, L, C, V, B, N, and M.)
2. You know what a query letter is.
3. You spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about fake people.
4. You think Suzanne Collins is a rock star.
5. You cried when Nathan Bransford announced he was leaving agenting.
6. You know a lot of people on the Internet you don’t know in real life.
7. You hate synopses.
8. You REALLY hate synopses.
9. You don’t scratch your head and wonder when someone reports a word count instead of a number of pages. (“Oh, that book was 50,000 words.” “Only 50,000? That’s practically a novella!”)
10. You correct other people’s grammar, especially in the stuff they write.
Sorry about the hiccup in our “Interview with an Agent” schedule! Hopefully, you’ll find this post a happy diversion. What would you add to the list?
33 comments:
Crits and betas are not some kind of weird skin disease. Or fish.
So funny. I've only had my laptop a year and there are several letters worn off--N, E, A...
There's a shout-out to you on my blog today for steering me to my agent!
Brenda, you're from London?! I'm totally going to read your comment in my head with a British accent, then:)
Kris, thanks for the shout-out! (I forgot to mention that in the comment I left on your blog...) I'm so glad things worked out for you and Vickie. So awesome.
LOL!
I would add that we're chronic eavesdroppers.
Amy
HA!
11. If your friends/family members keep asking if you're getting paid yet.
Loved the list. :D
So funny! :) Love this. And Brenda, I swear I used to think Crits and betas WERE some kind of fish. LOL
I usually just lurk, but I love this list! Well done, and soooo true.
I loved this list.
I'd add: And the word "edit" is a four letter word in more ways than one.
Bwahahaha. It's totally true, all fo them!
Only writer friends understand...and it seems like the online ones understand it better. One lady in my writer's group was like "How do you know that author?" and I said, "Um...we met on our blogs?" Only in the writer's world...
I"m glad I"m not the only one who cried when Nathan Bradford left.
Awesome post
Too funny - I totally relate to the letters being worn off (but allow me to one - up you :) My E, A, N, S and I and actually worn DOWN - the E especially slopes dramatically down and to the right. When I put my hands to the keyboard, I don't find my place by the bumps on the F and J, but the slope of my E. : )
Your dead on with the slang too - crits, beta, ms, WIP, trunked - the b/f had to get an induction when we started dating, but it was a trade off, cause I had no idea what "F stop" meant. :)
Last night, Ben asked me how many pages 11,000 words might be.
13. You know what a query is, even though you're not sure if yours is good enough.
LOL.
1. I've had my new laptop since the beginning of December and the "e" is already disappearing.
Great post.
So far I've lost the letters A and E, most of S and D, and part of L and N (MacBook, c. July 2006). The last time I took it in for service, the guy at the Genius bar said he'd never seen anything like that.
And I go to great lengths to avoid saying aloud the phrases "edit it" and "edited it" because I sound like a woodpecker.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
What a great and funny post!
I'm afraid I agree with many of these. Love your list. BTW, I am also a mom of two and former math major. Nice to meet you!
Amy, how else are we supposed to figure out how people talk? :)
Marybk, your addition made me laugh out loud. Literally. So true, so true.
Chantele, I'm glad you liked it!
Jocelyn, thanks for the comment! I always love to hear from the lurkers:)
So true, Connie. Revision is the soul of writing. Too bad it's also the thing that slowly sucks away all your joy and happiness...
Magan, I'm so grateful for blog friendships! I've found some wonderful critique partners that way.
You and me, Erinn. You and me (and, like, 5,000 other people who follow his blog).
Bigblackcat97, you win the keyboard erosion prize! That's incredible!
So true, Myrna. We all know WHAT a query is. Writing a good one is a whole other ball of wax...
LS, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has this problem! I might not have even noticed it had my mother-in-law not said one day, "I can't tell what the letters are! I've never seen that before!"
AnneB, see note to LS. My mother-in-law said the same thing:)
Glad you liked it, Monica!
Wow, Karen, you're like my alter ego or something! So cool!
This list is SOOOO TRUE! My -N and -S are completely gone and my -1 key sticks. Maybe because I abuse exclamation marks. AND I would totally fangirl squee if I ever saw SuCo IRL. See? I even gave her a nickname because ALL rock stars have one.
I love all of these, but #1 is my favorite. A lot of my letters are completely worn off, and the T actually has a hole in the center of the key. Oops?
Haha! Awesome list! Totally true!
Neat list. I correct people's writing literally all the time :) I tell them I have to like them to do that. It softens the critisism.
I laughed out loud at your first comment because I noticed that the "s" on my keyboard was fading last week!
Cambria, love SuCo! I think she should start signing books that way:)
Shari, I noticed just today that my space bar has a bit of a gash in it, probably because I don't cut my fingernails often enough...
Thanks for stopping by, Keary!
Esther, exactly. If you didn't love them, you wouldn't care whether they sounded stupid or not:)
Apparently, A.J., judging by the comments on this post, if your keyboard's pristine, you're not really a writer. It seems to be a malady we all share:)
On my old laptop the letters were worn off but I've only had this laptop for a couple months so all of the letters are still there.
But other than that, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
That was so awesome! My brother-in-law came over to do some stuff on my computer and just stared at my worn keys. He may think I need a life of some kind. He he. Great post!
...a blog sounds like a disease.
...you try to correct the spelling of a word verification.
Love these! Thanks!
erica
Give that new computer of yours another couple of months, writergal24. You'll whip those keys into shape:)
LeishaMaw, these poor family members of ours must think we abuse our keyboards or something...
Great additions, erica! Earlier today, Blogger gave me "flash" as my word verification. I was pretty sure something was wrong:)
Your lists rock!
(I've had my laptop since Christmas and was beginning to think it was defective as some of the keys are as you describe; now I know I'm just in good writerly company!)
Ooh, I love this topic! In fact, I just read it on Sandi Shelton's blog the other day. So fun to see everyone's answers - on both blogs! Here's what I have:
You know you’re a writer when it’s your job to listen to the voices in your head.
Or…You know you’re a writer when you spend every movie and book – and a while afterward – dissecting plot, character arc, and dialogue to discover what worked (and what didn’t).
Or…You know you’re a writer when you refer to your characters by first name, and your spouse knows exactly who you’re talking about.
Michael, I figured everybody's keys wore down after a while. But when my mother-in-law pointed out that she'd never seen anything like it, I decided it must be a writer thing:)
Caryn, your last one made me laugh. Sometimes, I think Honey Bear and I chat more about Seth and Adair than real, live people.
Lucy, I couldn't agree more with your #1 and #2. It is a never-ending struggle to keep everything in the right balance. Seems like I'm always letting writing take up too much time and brainpower.
Haha, these are GREAT, Krista! Hope you have a super-doooooper week. :)
These are great! And my writerly desire to add a couple of my own has brought me out of lurker status--ha! So, my additions:
1. You think form letters can be deciphered for personalized clues.
2. You spend too much time trying to keep the meaning of 'good', 'very nice' and 'significant' deals straight.
3. You understand the immediate import of someone getting a partial or full--and that these terms have nothing to do with glasses being half empty.
Thanks for a fantastic blog, Krista, as always!
Glad you liked them, Carol! I'm sure I'll have a super-dooooper week. First hurdle: preschool at my house:)
Great additions, Suzanne! I especially liked #1. We're writers, right? Must mean we like telling stories, even to ourselves:)
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