1. You’d rather write than watch TV, or go out with your friends, or read posts on Facebook. When you’re on a writing “roll”, you’d rather write than sleep!
2. You love reading, and you understand that reading like a writer will help your writing, even if you can’t explain why.
3. You tackle revision with a positive mind, you are tough with yourself and know that being able to cut words is probably your best tool.
4. You keep sending your work out and you take the submitting process seriously, and you grow a thick skin.
5. You understand that rejections are part of the path you are on, but you also understand that a lot of rejections most likely means you need to revise again.
6. You don’t whine and complain. You write and rewrite.
7. You have goals (such as completing your novel) and you work towards them with purpose, not away from them with excuses.
8. You look after your health, because wine and coffee and drugs don’t improve your writing.
9. You don’t apologize for the fact you aren’t published yet (or haven’t published a best seller) – you keep writing and rewriting and ignore the doom-and-gloomers.
10. You find what you need in order to do your best work – solitude, music, the right keyboard, a good dictionary, etc – and you write every day, when you can, and feel twitchy when you can’t.
Bottom line – a writer writes. And rewrites.
Want to add a Number 11? Please do!
A good writer disciplines their writing so that their social life does not impinge on their writing. They must say ‘no’ to friends popping in and ringing them up when they are writing. A true writer writes in isolation.
I suspect FB and TV are even more “social” – a lot of my students seem to find all social things hard to give up or reduce. They are very addictive!