Writers are very stereotyped creatures. We are expected to be brooding, angsty, drunk and/or on drugs all the time, and incredibly anti-social, and those are just the most common assumptions, I think. But while stereotypes are certainly no way to write effective characters or consider people in real life, they do exist because there is a certain amount of truth to them. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Take me, for example:
1. I'm incredibly shy around new people. I'm rather awkward in quite a few social situations, especially those involving people I don't know or people I've met a few times but am not, as Jane Austen might say, 'intimate' with yet. So if you ever meet me in person, go easy on me!!
2. I hate math. I absolutely and completely hate math. Anything beyond incredibly simple addition means I whip out my calculator, and when I saw this post on tumblr I was dying of laughter because it is so true. I was actually talking about this with two of my fellow writing majors in class yesterday - we're required to have three credits of math, and even though it's only one class in four years, we all dread it.
3. I am not a morning person, and I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep some nights. I'm not the type to bite someone's head off before I've had my cup of tea, but I do need that cup of tea. I'm also most productive in the evening or late at night, and in my ideal world, I could be up writing till 3 am and sleep till noon every day. Unfortunately, the real world does not agree with me on that score.
Those are some writer stereotypes that fit me rather well. Are there any writer stereotype categories that you fall into?
In some crazy way, I think we were fated to be writer buddies - maybe it runs in the name or something, because I can't stand large groups of loud people, DESPISE math in every sense of the word, and cannot function in the morning to save myself.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do fit one criteria of writer stereotyping: I write some seriously amazing stuff when I'm drunk. Not to blow my own horn, or whatever, but as soon as I'm on the champers, I'm practically some kind of wordsmith with my WIP. Of course, I'm not an alcoholic in any sense (I have like one drink a month, at most), but when I DO indulge, LOOK OUT. :P
I love writer stereotyping. It's rather hilarious. I think I fall into the stereotype of the writer who always has ink on my fingers and is always carrying around a notebook and writing stuff down.
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