11 Weird Habits Every Writer Will Find Deeply Relatable

You read sentences out loud to yourself. You read dialogue out loud to yourself. You outline plot points to yourself. You even occasionally do that thing from the movies where you psych yourself up in the mirror. You might get so used to talking to yourself, in fact, that you accidentally start doing it in public (right? please tell me that other people do that, too).

Fiction writers, this one is for you. I mean sure, you created your characters and yes, you know that they're entirely fictional. But sometimes you find yourself making conversation with them anyway. Most of the time it's fairly civil. It's when you start yelling at your own made up characters for not obeying you, their omnipotent creator, that it starts to get... a little... weird...

You see a lot of targeted ads for new parents on the internet, but you're really just on baby name websites to look for character names. At least, you were looking for character names at first, but now you're several pages deep into the etymology of the name "Lisa."

Every writer has, at some point or another, ended up on the Wikipedia page for the Donner Party. Or Googled "how long does it take a human limb to decompose." Or unintentionally stumbled on a Flat-Earther page. You might have the internet search history of a very incompetent serial killer and/or a conspiracy nut, but you're really just trying to get some research done on this new story (you promise).

When the writing flow is good, nothing else matters. But that does mean that you sometimes wear pajamas all day, eat dinner at 2am, go for a week without seeing sunlight, and completely lose track of your position on the space-time continuum.

You never know when you'll hear the perfect snippet of dialogue. So you find yourself listening in to strangers conversations... a lot. And writing down the things they say. It's only creepy if you get caught, right?

How on earth are you supposed to get any writing done when you still have to do laundry? And clean the windows? And bathe the cat? And download the perfect font? And upcycle your old porch rail into a coat rack? And perfect your autumn squash risotto recipe, because writing is impossible and you just don't want to do it?

Most writers appear to be quiet, brooding people, when in fact they are just struggling to think of a good synonym for the word "gargle." Even when you're out with friends, you sometimes stare sorrowfully into the middle distance, wondering if you should cut that one fight scene, or trying to decide what baby centaurs look like.

The diet of your average writer veers wildly from raw carrots to dry ramen to cold pizza to frosting straight of the can (or why not try all of them together?). Writers tend to be short on time and on cash, and in desperate need of snacks at all hours of the day and night. The result is a bizarre smorgasbord of foods that were definitely not meant to be eaten together.

After typing for several hours straight, your brain starts to leak out of your ears, and all common knowledge of spelling goes flying out the window. Is it "tunnel" or "tunnle"? Is "of" spelled with a "v"? How the hell do you spell "necessary"? The more time you manage to spend actually writing at your keyboard, the more words start to look like a bunch of little squiggles with no inherent meaning.

The vast majority of writing is grinding away at your keyboard, or rewriting a draft for the umpteenth time, or staring blankly at the wall until it's time for bed. Every once in a while, though, you'll find yourself struck by inspiration. And more often than not, it'll come from the strangest of places: the name of Starbucks' new seasonal beverage, or a gif that your friend sent you, or that poster that's been on your wall for years. It may not make any sense, but you'll take whatever you can get, because the best ideas can sneak up on you in the weirdest ways.