How To Tell If You’re A Writer

You might be a writer if all of your books are at the bottom of your bag because you packed them first.

You might be a writer if you see landscapes in descriptions. The cumulus clouds drifted high above us; the water lapped its wet tongue at our toes.

You might be a writer if you mouth the words “he said” when your friend tells you stories. You avoid modifiers, though, because that’s B-league.

You might be a writer if you can’t leave your notebook behind, not even when you travel to exotic locations. Panama. Iceland. Machu Pichu. Vacation? No. New place to scrawl words.

You might be a writer if you don’t know what some of your biggest idols look like.

You might be a writer if the smell of books arouses you.

You might be a writer if you are prepared to employ your friends’ personality traits in fictional characters.

You might be a writer if Alzheimer’s terrifies you more than any other mortal disease. You would rather your body wither than your mind.

You might be a writer if you find yourself gravitating towards words, reciting them repeatedly under your breath, simply because they sound good. Deforestation. Defenestration. Slipstream. Slipshod. Reshod. Relegate. Renegade. Reengage. Reprimand. You are concerned that this is a sign of Alzheimer’s.

You might be a writer if you think the word meandering is really fucking cool.

You might be a writer if a part of you becomes excited about a bad breakup. You think that poetry comes from misery.

You might be a writer if you have ever heard the word duende.

You might be a writer if, when someone asks you if you’ve read a work written in a foreign language, you immediately ask, “which translation?”

You might be a writer if you are able to state that you are a writer without examining your shoelaces. You still think it’s a conceited thing to say.

You might be a writer if you’ve heard the above quote numerous times, but cannot attribute it.

You might be a writer if you have something to say about Oxford commas, semicolons, and how lists are best written in threes.

You might be a writer if using a thesaurus feels dishonest, duplicitous, deceitful, dishonorable.

You might be a writer if you write in thought interruption because—squirrel!—your mind works that way.

You might be a writer if you become secretly and unreasonably resentful when a peer uses a word that you do not recognize.

You might be a writer if your brain overflows with fleeting profundities, but you find them impossible to grab hold of.

You might be a writer if you caught the sentence-ending preposition above, and you’ve already rearranged the sentence in your mind.

You might be a writer if your head is full of words you can spell and define but not pronounce.

You might be a writer if you find the following sentence funny: “I looked out the tiny window at the airplane’s carefully constructed wing. It was riveting.”

You might be a writer if you see tragedy in flippancy.

You might be a writer if you fall in love only reluctantly because of your resistance to the ideal. The perfect partner is boring, you think. Flat. One-dimensional. Give me character flaws. Give me emotional instability. Let me cavort with crazy. Let me tango with terrible. I only jive with jealous.

You might be a writer if you can’t stop alliterating, even though you know it’s terrible.

You might be a writer if you find it difficult to have experiences because you are always wondering if this would make a good personal essay.

You might be a writer if you defer emotions for when you are alone and able to put them to paper.

You might be a writer if you assume strangers cannot possibly notice you staring at them. You are, after all, the invisible narrator.

You might be a writer if you read every one of these reasons why you might be a writer, because you already know you are.