10. You've been transcribing your handwritten draft and a glance at the computer screen tells you you've just typed 5 pages of gobbledegook since your hands were one key over the entire time.
9. Your coffee is cold.
8. You've given two characters the same name.
7. A character is in two places at once. And no, he/she does not have magical powers.
6. Thinking cold coffee is better than no coffee, you pick up your mug to discover a bug doing the backstroke. Hopefully, you make this discovery before you've swallowed.
5. If you write mysteries, you realize you've given three characters the same motive.
4. You decide to purge and replace your usual suspects of over-used words. Your first search comes up with over 1,000 hits.
3. You just spent ten minutes watching the dust motes float in the air. No, you weren't thinking about your story - you were watching dust motes.
2. You emit an ear-splitting primal scream, causing your cat to attempt to attach itself to the ceiling. He returns to the floor with cold revenge flickering in his eyes. Be afraid.
1. You empty the bug swimming pool of coffee and get yourself a fresh cup. You spill it. And now, you're out of coffee.
At least I don't have a cat, which saves me the agony of #2.
ReplyDeleteTerry
Terry's Place
Romance with a Twist--of Mystery
Arrgghh. The life of a writer. I completely relate. Especially to the moving over one key and etoyinh honnlryuhook....
ReplyDeleteTerry; Cats come in many disguises. I'd still watch my back, if I were you.
ReplyDeleteAnne; Isn't it awful? And isn't it odd that it looks rather like Russian?
d ;otu;;t upp b;pft up jp,t Damn! I mean: A little too close to home. :-)
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I gave one character two different names.
ReplyDeleteAll hail the crappy writing!
Richard; I feel your pain. I mean "O grrr; upit [som/"
ReplyDeleteElisa; I've done that too. It was a confetti-filled realization.
10, 4 and 3.
ReplyDeleteHow sad.
Great list.
Elspeth - Oh, those are most definitely signs of a bad writing day. I once found so much overuse of the word scoop/ing/ed that I thought my story should have taken place at an ice cream parlour. At least then I'd have had some sort of compensation for bad writing. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteCarol; Sometimes confession is good for the soul; or it's an idea for a blog post!
ReplyDeleteMargot; "Scooped" has never been one of my over-used words; however I plead guilty to 'smiled'. Sometimes I swear I have the Cheshire Cat hiding in my writing.
I hate it when I slip my fingers onto the wrong keys. It happens a lot because my chair is on wheels and tends to ftigy yo yhr tihy.
ReplyDeletePat; At least you have an excuse. I try to remind myself about the nifty bumps on the 'j' and the 'f' but I always seem to do this after the fact.
ReplyDeleteI'm baaack...because I have an award for you at my blog.
ReplyDelete# 11: your computer goes bling-bling and screams it has been infected by several Trojan horses!
ReplyDeleteThat´s what happened to me Monday. :(
It wasn´t even true. The hoax was to make poor victims click on the ´remedy file´ they offered - and if you did that, your computer crashed.
Luckily I was too smart for that, but I daren´t do much until our computer wizard at work had assured me it was just a hoax.
I love #3!
ReplyDelete