29 Words That Mean Something Totally Different When You’re A Writer
It’s been a highly productive day.
1. “Writing.”
What it means: Committing words to paper or text to an electronic document.
What it means when you’re a writer: Doing literally anything else.
2. “Protagonist.”
What it means: The main character in a story.
What it means when you’re a writer: You.
3. “Friends.”
What it means: A non-romantic relationship between two or more people.
What it means when you’re a writer: Characters for your novel.
4. “Netflix.”
What it means: A video streaming service for watching films and television series.
What it means when you’re a writer: Research!
5. “Research.”
What it means: Exhaustive, in-depth process of uncovering facts about a subject.
What it means when you’re a writer: Netflix!
6. “Plot.”
What it means: The events that make up a story.
What it means when you’re a writer: Something genre writers worry about.
7. “Character development.”
What it means: How a character changes and grows during the course of a story.
What it means when you’re a writer: Something literary writers worry about.
8. “Secrets.”
What it means: Sensitive information only shared with trusted individuals, i.e., close friends.
What it means when you’re a writer: Plot ideas!
9. “Starbucks.”
What it means: Pedestrian chain of cafés. Better at taxes than coffee.
What it means when you’re a writer: Day care!
10. “Feedback.”
What it means: A process of critiquing a narrative work in order to improve it.
What it means when you’re a writer: Compliments or GTFO.
11. “Sex.”
What it means: Penetrative intercourse.
What it means when you’re a writer: You’re either doing it, or writing about doing it. You’re writing about doing it.
12. “Twitter.”
What it means: A social media platform allowing for short updates up to 140 characters in length.
What it means when you’re a writer: A social media platform that allows you to stalk agents and publishers.
13. “#amwriting.”
What it means: A Twitter hashtag used to denote when a writer is sitting down to work on a story.
What it means when you’re a writer: #amtweeting.
14. “Weekend.”
What it means: A break at the end of the working week used primarily for leisure, typically Saturday and Sunday.
What it means when you’re a writer: Something other people have.
15. “Alcoholic beverage.”
What it means: Beers, wines, and spirits.
What it means when you’re a writer: Story juice!
16. “Exercise.”
What it means: An activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness.
What it means when you’re a writer: An activity where you try to write from the point of view of a chair/plant/member of the opposite sex.
17. “Sprint.”
What it means: Running at full speed.
What it means when you’re a writer: Writing as many words as possible in a short time with no regard for quality. Also known as trying to hit your word count.
18. “Novel.”
What it means: A book length narrative.
What it means when you’re a writer: So far you have the title.
19. “Literary agents.”
What it means: A person who represents writers and their work to publishers.
What it means when you’re a writer: Mythical creatures that everyone talks about, but no one you know has actually encountered.
20. “Best-seller.”
What it means: An extremely popular book.
What it means when you’re a writer: A book with an obvious lack of literary merit.
21. “Critical darling.”
What it means: A book that is well-reviewed and nominated for all the big literary prizes.
What it means when you’re a writer: No one read it.
22. “Draft.”
What it means: An in-progress version of a literary work.
What it means when you’re a writer: How you refer to your finished novel when someone criticises it.
23. “Editing.”
What it means: The process of correcting and modifying a manuscript with the intention of improving it.
What it means when you’re a writer: Crying into your keyboard because everything is shit.
24. “Under submission.”
What it means: The process of sending your manuscript out to agents and publishers.
What it means when you’re a writer: I haven’t worked up the courage to send my manuscript to anyone yet.
25. “Marketing.”
What it means: Communicating the value of a product or service, for the purpose of selling that product or service.
What it means when you’re a writer: Desperately spamming your Twitter and Facebook friends with links to your book page.
26. “I write for the purity of the art.”
What it means: What writers say when asked about their literary motivation.
What it means when you’re a writer: I want to be famous.
27. “Reader.”
What it means: Someone digesting a text, in this case a work of literature.
What it means when you’re a writer: An unseen enemy, impossible to understand and therefore to be feared.
28. “Online reviewer.”
What it means: A person leaving a “critique” of your work on Goodreads/Amazon/Twitter/a blog.
What it means when you’re a writer: Kill it. Kill it with fire.
29. “Highly productive day.”
What it means: Got a lot done.
What it means when you’re a writer: Masturbated a lot.
