Would you like to be a writer? Have you ever wondered what might be required for a successful career in the print medium? Me too!
You probably already unknowingly dabble in everyday writing as it is, just a bit, what with writing advertising copy (or sending a brief email requiring your assistant to write advertising copy), self-promotional pieces and the wide variety of social media outlets everyone uses routinely now. If an ad is particularly successful, perhaps you’ve reflected on penning something more substantial, for a wider audience.
Well, writers are a mixed and quirky group, but most share qualities that distinguish them from mere mortals, those members of the workforce who do not routinely put finger to word processor for a living.
Perhaps you’ve even noticed certain personality traits that make writer friends or acquaintances stand out. No matter whether one is a New York Times best-selling author, a syndicated national newspaper columnist, or the poor guy who creates the bilingual instructions for the home-vasectomy kit, most writers routinely expose themselves by their habits.
Maybe “expose themselves” wasn’t the best choice of words there…let’s go with distinguish themselves?
I seem to find myself apologizing to Jeff Foxworthy a lot over the years as a writer myself, but those “you might be a redneck” comedy routines of his sure simplify this illustration.
I offer a few examples:
You might be a writer if your closet is full of crushed velvet smoking jackets and several tweed beige blazers with elbow patches, and you comb your hair with your hand.
You might be a writer if midway through your grocery list you introduce a mysterious new character, to add some conflict and plot twists.
You might be a writer if a sunset isn’t a sunset, it’s the arms of the evening covering the sleepy twilight eye of the day, in lavender sleeves of nether dreams.
You might be a writer if you didn’t need an interpreter for that last example (but you’re still a real estate agent if you considered stealing that line for a property listing feature sheet).
You might be a writer if your deadline for a feature requiring intensive research and multiple character interviews was three weeks ago, but you are entirely fabricating the article at warp-speed 12 minutes before press time, while stalling the editor with the ransom demands from your kidnappers.
You might be a writer if the thesaurus feature in your word-processing program opens automatically every time you type a word with more than two syllables.
You might be a writer if in a moment of frustration, you have penciled in revisions to all of your children’s storybooks. Jack is now a complex and brooding hill climber and Jill is a spunky young girl who tells him to fetch his own friggin’ pail of water. You no longer See Dick Run, rather Richard oversees a successful global conglomerate while managing to balance quality time and a creative modern romance with Jane.
You might be a writer if while answering a marketing survey question in 25 words or less, you realize you can’t even form a sentence in 25 words or less.
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
