Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The Writers' Quiz

1. You are:
a. obsessive
b. compulsive
c. oral
d. anal
e. Republican
f. substance or behavior (as in sexual) challenged (tempted)
g. apt to hide things
h. in denial
i. over-abundantly ego supplemented
j. all of the above

2. Sometimes you feel like:
a. writing
b. all of the above

3. You experience moments of schadenfreude when:
a. someone you know pays to have work published
b. someone you know gets creamed in an ad hominem review
c. someone you know gets ignored by normally ad hominem reviewers
d. someone you don't know experiences a-c supra
e. when you are assigned an editing project by an author in the counselling profession whose
manuscript is filled with rants
f. gay bashers are proven to be gay themselves

4. You are frequently motivated to write when:
a. you can find nothing interesting to read
b. you find too many interesting things to read
c. you should be leaving to go somewhere you were only luke-warm about going in the first place
d. you find yourself in a situation where everyone seems to be having fun
e. you find yourself in a situation--say colonoscopy--where no one except the nurses are having fun
f. someone you don't know appears to have some power over you
g. you have discovered in some dramatic way that power is illusory
h. inanimate objects appear to be playing tricks on you

5. You are most concerned about:
a. the story you lost ten years ago when a computer crashed before you backed up the text
b. your complete lack or originality
c. your ability to deal with anything of originality
d. your vocabulary
e. the direct proportion between your aging process and your use of profanity

6. Your favorite tactic for dealing with the fear that your last story was in fact the last you will ever write:
a. a cup of latte with extra foam
b. another cup of latte with extra foam
c. whistling "Gone, Gone, Gone" from Porgy and Bess
d. shouting "Screw it!" (or worse) to the squirrels on the tree stump outside your study window
e. ordering an expensive pen from The Fountain Pen Hospital
f. believing the fear to the point where you insult the mailman
g. reading something by an author whose work you hate
h. not shaving until someone asks if you're growing a beard
i. another cup of latte with extra foam
j. download podcasts of Rush Limbaugh and listen to them
k. imagine yourself doing some other line of work

7. The worst thing about being a writer is:
a. people confusing you with John Updyke
b. people confusing you with Germaine Greer
c. not having started sooner



4 comments:

x said...

I love that you have no care whatsoever whether or not you make sense. You are a hilarious free-associator. And am I a "ranting couselor?"

John Eaton said...

I'll have three waves with extra foam, please, and a pecan latte on the side.

John :)

Lori Witzel said...

1. Pick me! Pick me! (waves hand wildly) Oh...it's not that type of quiz.
2. Heh!
3. So often f. Ah, schadenfreude, my guilty sin (as opposed to my guilty pleasures.)
4. h = *snork* (made me snort coffee out my nose)
5. e. (What the !@#$%^ are you trying to say here?)
6. None of the above (it would help if I wrote more than tiny occasional short-shorts) but talking to strangers produces a nice placebo calming effect.
7. Brilliant post, and thanks for the grin...now off to pet a cat or three, glug some coffee, and market stuff...

R.L. Bourges said...

Don't do it, Shelly. I beg of you. It's not worth it. This too shall pass. You'll feel better in the morning.
P.S. I'm referring to 6 j.