5 Clear Signs You Are Naturally A Writer
If you find yourself nodding to any of these, then you’re, in fact, a writer at heart
Your writing can belong to one of several genres.
You can be a copywriter, content writer, novelist, affiliate marketing writer, journalist, or something else.
Regardless of which genre you find yourself in, there are just some things that we, as writers, all share in common.
Here are five obvious signs that you just might be a writer at heart.
1. Your best friends are books
The greatest writers are fervent readers.
As writers, reading means a lot to us. It’s how we:
- Discover our voice
- Garner ideas and inspiration for our writing process
- Understand different cultures and traditions
- Learn new words and expand our vocabulary
- Learn new ways to craft our stories
We love the enlightenment and education we get from nonfiction books.
We also love to feed our imagination with captivating stories, be it science fiction, romance, fantasy, or some other fiction genre.
The best part of reading is that we get to discover new words and phrases to spice up our own writing.
So whether we’re poring over The Lord of the Rings or reading an instructional article, you’ll most likely come across some words or phrases that you’ve never previously heard about.
This brings us to my next point…
2. You take notes all the time
Do you keep at least one journal by your side at all times? Or is the most frequented app on your phone a note-taking app?
If so, chances are you’re a writer by heart.
Note-taking helps us to understand, recollect, and recover important points when we need them the most.
Our mind is actively thinking up ideas all the time. Everyday events and conversations around us are also great sources of ideas. If we do not write down these thoughts and ideas in time, we risk losing them forever.
Journal notes are the lifeblood of our work as writers. It’s where we store ideas, book passages, quotes, phrases, messy scrambles and sketches, and other assets that we’ll use later in our work.
3. You like to be alone
Writing demands a high level of persistence and concentration.
If you often find yourself yearning for solitude, then you have the character of a writer.
To have sustained, deep periods of flow when writing, you require solitude. This could be for hours, days, and even months on end.
Many writers agree with this. The artist Agnes Martin said in an interview:
The best things in life happen to you when you’re alone.
We, as writers, do our best work in private seclusion. We work best when we’re alone in our room and when everywhere is calm and peaceful.
4. You’re a perfectionist
Perfectionism is something that all writers actively grapple with.
But it’s not always a bad thing. There are upsides and downsides to perfectionism.
On the one hand, the lack of satisfaction will motivate you to attend classes, read and work to improve your writing, which means you’re likely to continue improving.
But on the other hand, it could have the following negative effects on you:
- obsessively avoiding mistakes
- intense fear of letting others down
- holding yourself to impossibly high standards
All of these can lead to depression and burnout. It takes self-awareness to maintain a healthy level of perfectionism.
5. You overanalyze everything
As writers, our minds are constantly in motion.
When we’re not busy conceiving new projects and ideas, we’re engrossed in our environment, analyzing everything and everyone around us.
Writers tend to be keen observers. They’re the kind of people that’ll wonder why a person smiled when a certain gesture was made or why everyone in a room acted a certain way when something happened.
Writers love analyzing humans in this way because it helps us understand how their minds work. It helps understand the motivation behind certain actions.
This analytical ability ultimately leads to empathy, which is a trait that must be mastered by all great writers.
Understanding the diverse motivations that drive people to do what they do takes great attention to detail.
It’s okay to doubt your ability to write. Even the great J.K. Rowling once considered herself an awful writer. But she didn’t give up, and now she’s now one of the most successful writers of all time.
Keep writing!
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