The Writer Trapped Within

I’ve been writing since I was a youngster. I was thrilled beyond belief when I won the English Award during my seventh grade graduation. The award inspired me to write three different stories during that summer. I typed them on an old, turn-of-the-century typewriter (the kind that was so old it didn’t have a “1” key; you had to use lowercase “L”). When I was in ninth grade, my dad gave me the best Christmas present a writer could ask for: an IBM computer with a dot matrix printer. I continued to write short and long stories well into adulthood.

Today I am lucky enough to work on my writing full time. I started this blog as a way to channel my writing efforts, and to force myself to write every day (practice makes perfect, or so I’ve read). As I hammered out various blog ideas, this list came to mind.

Ten signs you have a writer trapped inside you:

1. Casual clothing and working at home seems natural.
2. You text in complete sentences with proper punctuation.
3. You mentally correct other people’s texts.
4. You know the difference between two/too/to, then/than, who’s/whose, lay/lie, you’re/your.
5. You want to correct all the mistakes in the emails you receive.
6. You think proper use of the English language is a lost art.
7. Ideas come to you morning, noon, and night, and you keep a notepad by your bed, by the couch, and anywhere else in the house you spend time.
8. You started a blog just so you would have an outlet for your witticisms.
9. You subscribe to more than one writing magazine, and you’ve lost track of all the writing classes you’ve attended.
10. You’ll spend an extra 30 minutes on an email or letter, including looking up words in the dictionary app on your phone, just to make sure everything is perfect.

If you found yourself nodding as you read any of the above items, there is only one cure. You must sit down and let the ideas flow. Then start your own blog, and let the rest of us know how it goes.