Take this test to see if you are an incurable writer (56 questions)

February 13, 2016   Tags: 🕑 6 minutes read

Are you an incurable writer? Here are 56 tell-tale clues!

This is the fifth in a series of self-help tests to diagnose you as an incurable writer, hopelessly addicted to words and a vagabond spirit upon this planet.

If you are a writer, my condolences. But you won’t get any pity from me, because I’m a writer, too. If you missed any of the first four tests, here are the links:

Read here the first 54 ominous signs that you might be a writer.

Read here the second 52 signs that you might be a writer.

Read here the third 51 signs that you might be a writer.

Read here the fourth 52 signs that you might be a writer.

Are you an incurable writer?

If the collection of notebooks beside your bed obscures your alarm clock, you might be a writer.

If you love visiting cities like Washington, DC, and Brooklyn, because they have streets named for letters, you might be a writer.

If the most aggressive argument you had last week was with one of the characters in your head, you might be a writer.

If you have a wristband that says, “I’m a writer”, you might be a writer.

Wristband - I am a writer

(This wristband comes courtesy of Rapid Wristbands, and is being modeled by Lauralee, my younger daughter.)

If you refer to your mentor as your “muse”, you might be a writer.

If a full parking lot is a sign that a restaurant is probably serving a lot of “characters” right now, you might be a writer.

If the most common question you get when you run into someone at the grocery store is “Where have you been?”, you might be a writer.

If you measure speed in pages per hour, rather than in miles per hour, you might be a writer.

If you still save a place at the table for your imaginary friend, you might be a writer.

If you consider eating and sleeping to be distractions, you might be a writer.

If you think that a pen or pencil is one of the “Six Simple Machines“, you might be a writer.

If your notebook follows you even into the shower and the swimming pool, you might be a writer.

If the draft at your desk comes from neither the door or the window, you might be a writer.

If when someone says they have to buy new sheets, you think they are talking about paper, you might be a writer.

If you arrange your jars of jams and sauces and condiments and pickles in alphabetical order, you might be a writer.

If your pillow is better educated than most people you know, you might be a writer.

If everybody in a crowd appears to have a thought bubble above their heads, you might be a writer.

If everybody in a crowd appears to have a thought bubble above their heads, you might be a writer.

If the death of one of your barn cats inspires a whodunnit, you might be a writer.

If cars behind you always honk while you try to read every sign, you might be a writer.

If the subject you excelled in best at school was daydreaming, you might be a writer.

If you know there must be a desk somewhere under all those notes, you might be a writer.

If you feel gypped when your new screwdriver doesn’t come with a users manual to read, you might be a writer.

If there is a tattoo of a pen on your arm, you might be a writer.

If furniture assembly instructions usually compel you to send the manufacturer a “letter to the editor”, you might be a writer.

If you have ever stockpiled books in anticipation of a possible shortage, you might be a writer.

If you consider run-on sentences to be human rights violations, you might be a writer.

If you read a newspaper story about a war and remember the horror of the grammar mistakes rather than the horror of the killing, you might be a writer.

If you have ever insisted that there is no life on Mars because no Martian publisher has been discovered, you might be a writer.

If you hold a secret grudge against pictograms, you might be a writer.

If you think that “writer’s block” is a term for the cornerstone of your story, you might be a writer.

If you often have difficulty answering questions because it’s not that simple to choose the right words, you might be a writer.

If the most beautiful wrapping paper you can find in the house is a newspaper, you might be a writer.

If you choose where to shop for a new home based on “proximity to fire hydrant”, you might be a writer.

If you know that “Flintstones paper” is a synonym for rocks, you might be a writer. Watch for falling Flintstones paper

If you have ever been confounded by the lack of an official word for “doughnut holes”, you might be a writer.

If you are always the last to finish your dinner because nobody else in the family keeps getting up to check facts that come up in conversation, you might be a writer.

If the tips of your fingers are callused, you might be a writer. Or a guitarist. Or, most likely, both.

If you can’t understand why anybody would turn on the TV when there is a perfectly good book still unwritten, you might be a writer.

If you still write Christmas cards, because…well…it is writing, after all, you might be a writer.

If your paper recycling exceeds your compost nine times out of ten, you might be a writer.

If you take up an offer for a “free quote” assuming they’ll be quoting from literature, you might be a writer.

If your pillow is feeling lumpy from all the notebooks beneath it, you might be a writer.

If all the patches on your quilts have letters, you might be a writer.

If the periodic table sounds exciting because it’s dedicated to a punctuation mark, you might be a writer.

If you’ve ever donated a box of assorted bookmarks to charity, you might be a writer.

If your spouse mentions “romance”, and you think “Harlequin”, you might be a writer (in the doghouse).

If you far too frequently picture your spouse lying on the floor in a pool of blood, you might be a writer.

You might be a writer

If you check for dead bodies before putting anything in the dumpster, you might be a writer.

If each item on your shopping list requires foreshadowing, you might be a writer.

If you prefer reading to travel because books take you more places, you might be a writer.

If you think plagiarism should be added to the Criminal Code, you might be a writer.

If you’ve ever considered publishing your grocery list, you might be a writer.

If you know when to use a comma, or even if you think you do, you might be a writer.

If you actually cheered when Twitter hinted at an increase from 140 characters to 10,000 characters, you might be a writer.

If your allergy profile at the pharmacy includes split infinitives and BLOCK CAPS (sorry), you might be a writer.

Now it’s your turn.  How do you recognize a writer?  What are the tell-tale clues that warn you to defenestrate while there’s still breath in your body?

Oh, yeah.  If you use words like “defenstrate”…

About David Leonhardt

David Leonhardt is President of The Happy Guy Marketing, a published author, a "Distinguished Toastmaster", a former consumer advocate, a social media addict and experienced with media relations and government reports.

Read more about David Leonhardt


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  1. Victoria Adams says:
    at 1:48 pm

    Guess I’m an incurable writer 🙂
    Tweeted.

    • David Leonhardt says:
      at 10:00 pm

      But who wants to be cured, right?

  2. lenie says:
    at 2:42 pm

    This is a great post – fun to read but with some really good points too.
    Thanks to Sheryl Perry for sharing.

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