Comments on: Creative writers can be difficult to detect during job interviews

By: Miriam Joy

Miriam Joy — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:45:49 +0000

Ha, this did make me laugh. Especially since I recognise myself in it, and I’m not old enough to have a job. I’m the one sitting at the back of the Maths room frantically writing on my arms because I can’t find any paper to write down this AWESOME IDEA I’VE JUST HAD. Teachers are also used to me walking into the classroom looking shell shocked because I just killed off a character during my lunch break.

By: Angela Parson Myers

Angela Parson Myers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:42:40 +0000

That was my strategy.I always took my day planner, because it made me look amazingly organized. Sometimes I even took notes on the meeting, because who knows what the next book will include? Everything becomes grist in the mill of the writer.

By: Phoenix

Phoenix — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:13:24 +0000

Aside from my varied experience and the memory and processing capacity of my writer brain, my longest-term employer found he liked to exploit my ability to spell more than any other talent. He would frequently interrupt the high-pressure multi-tasking work (simple duties for those with mutant writing superpowers) that he insisted required my utmost attention, to ask me how to spell some eight-letter word in our native language (English)that he had decided he just had to put into his latest letter/email.

In the years I worked for him, he never managed to impress me intellectually, as a businessman, as a manager, as a leader or, sadly, even as a human being.

By: Kathy Waller

Kathy Waller — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:14:34 +0000

A lawyer I worked for told me he thought I had left my position because I needed something more creative than the drudgery I did for him. I had actually enjoyed working as a paralegal, but I’d often been tempted to embellish appellate briefs with fictional details and bits of purple prose just to liven things up.

By: J.A. Marlow

J.A. Marlow — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:00:25 +0000

Run out of a meeting to make notes? Ridiculous!

A true writer never goes anywhere without something to make notes on. In a work environment, the other employees and managers become accustomed to seeing you constantly with sticky notes or notepads. Even in meetings.

An idea comes in the meeting? Well, you already have all your sticky notes and notepads. Start scribbling furiously. The head of the company or the head of the meeting will see you taking notes on the ‘meeting’. Oh, nice, an employee paying attention and really getting something out of the meeting while everyone else is falling asleep! This employee is going places! We might think of giving them a raise or a promotion…

Meanwhile, you are actually writing out the rules of Faster Than Light for a new novel, or how the Protag can get out of the trap the Antog set up without losing a limb or their life.

Ahh, the life of a undercover writer!

By: Rebecca M. Senese

Rebecca M. Senese — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:18:40 +0000

Oh my god, that is funny and terrifyingly accurate! I especialy love her line about about non-fiction writers being as close to normal human beings while still be writers. Hilarious! It’s also a comfort to realize I’m not the only weirdo around.

By: Bridget McKenna

Bridget McKenna — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:42:20 +0000

This particular roomful writes AND talks about writing, all day long, and on Quiz Night at the pub, even longer. I believe we are a bit terrifying, but we also look forward to going to work of a morning. Sadly, that’s more than I can say about most folks.

By: Passive Guy

Passive Guy — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:38:09 +0000

A roomful of writers doing something other than talking about writing is a terrifying prospect, Bridget.

By: Bridget McKenna

Bridget McKenna — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:28:33 +0000

This article is laugh-out-loud funny. I’m sending a copy of the OP to my boss, who manages a whole roomful of these odd creatures, poor man.