"Are You a Real Writer?" Self-Test

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR WRITING IS A HOBBY, AN OBSESSION, OR A CALLING

If you’ve ever wondered, take the following quiz…with a grain of salt.

1. Do you fail to get a good night’s sleep because characters tap you on the shoulder at three in the morning to tell you their story (If you write non-fiction, it’ll be chapter titles or three-point plans that wake you)?

1. Most nights
2. Sometimes
3. That’s what Tylenol PM is for, isn’t it?
4. I sleep like a baby with a full tummy and a silky blanket.

2. You sit at a fast food restaurant with your mind on:

1. The special sauce
2. Adding more salt to the fries
3. The fact that the meal cost more than you made on writing last year
4. Eavesdropping on the fascinating conversation transpiring in the booth behind you.

3. You sit in church with your mind on:

1. The sermon, duh
2. The intriguing character with purple hair and lip piercings three pews ahead of you (ala author Ginny Smith)
3. The notebook that fits in the pages of your Bible so you can jot down that plotline before you forget it…thank You, Lord!
4. The potluck to follow

4. In your purse or wallet right now are:

1. Tickets to a Lawrence Welk reunion event
2. Three novels and a bar of chocolate pirated from your kids’ Halloween candy (It’s a big wallet!)
3. A royalty check on its way to the bank where it will rest until time to pay for your next writer’s conference
4. Six thumb drives

5. Given the choice you would vacation in:

1. Hawaii
2. The Bahamas
3. Ireland
4. The library

6. When you enter a stationary supply store you:

1. Walk right to the aisle with cute little journals
2. Grab a cart. You’ll need it.
3. Have to ask where they keep the printer cartridges
4. Start to vibrate from the adrenalin rush
   

7. When the mailman delivers your copies of Southern Living, Coastal Living, Midwest Living, the New Yorker, Writer’s Digest, Christian Communicator, and Victorian Homes and your spouse raises an eyebrow, you:

a. Claim they’re for your niece’s school fundraising project for her class trip to Mexico

2. Pretend it’s all a mistake
3. Claim to have current articles in each issue and hope your spouse doesn’t ask you to prove it. Nah, they never read our stuff anyway.
4. Pull out the writer’s favorite word weapon—“Research!”

8. You dust your baseboards:

1. Daily
2. Weekly
3. Monthly
4. We’re supposed to dust our baseboards?

9. The first thing you reach for during a power outage is:

1. A flashlight
2. Candles and matches
3. A battery-operated radio
4. Your Alpha-Smart

10. When you read the word anti-rejection, you immediately think of:

1. Medication given to liver transplant recipients
2. Medication given to heart transplant recipients
3. Ant poison. Phonics have never been your forté.
4. Chocolate

Tomorrow’s blog will share the key for scoring your answers.