Are You A Professional Writer? Take My Quiz!

There's been a lot of discussion in some corners of the Internet this weekend over the idea of being a "professional writer." I won't bother linking to the original source's quiz because it's boring and inaccurate. However, I have decided that I'd pitch in with a more accurate quiz. It's just eleven questions; if you can answer "Yes!" to at least eight of them, congratulations—you're a professional writer. A number of the questions are US-centric, so please feel free to provide foreign analogues in the comments, if you think of any.

1. When someone who owes you money says that the check will go into the mail today, do you do some quick mental math based on all of the following:

a. your understanding of postal service delivery times
b. whether or not the check will go to an internal mail room first, or to a street mail box,
c. whether it'll be slipped into the box before or after that day's final pick-up

all to figure out whether or not you need to borrow $50 for the week?

2. Have you ever sat in a bookstore, behind a card table, by yourself, for an hour? (Wrapping gifts for either pay or charity doesn't count.)

3. Ever buy every copy of a magazine at a newsstand, and start to explain to the cashier why you're doing it, only to be stopped cold by the look in his dead cowlike eyes?

4. Do strangers seem to know quite a bit about you? Do they sometimes just think they know a lot about you?

5. Have you ever been yelled at by a librarian?

6. Ever quickly inhale when your new email beep thing beeps at you, chew your lip for a moment, and then mutter, "Well, fuck" after skimming the email?

7. When you see a half-ruined paperback book facedown in a puddle in the gutter, do you turn it over with with your big toe to see the title?

8. Without using a search engine or a phone book, can you tell me where the reduced-fee medical clinic in your town is? If not from the US, have you ever received a check from the government having to do with libraries?

9. Ever get one of those dumb little reading lights that you're supposed to screw onto your forehead as a gift from a member of your extended family?

10. You meet someone at a party. He or she is introduced to you as a writer. Suddenly everything is a blur; the room is spinning and your stomach is burning. You hear the words "Harper Collins" and a cheerful little snort. Your tongue is dry as sheetrock no matter how much of your drink you drink. You glance around and see this:


Are these people secretly laughing at you?

11. Ever do some research on your state's regulations regarding the possibility of "reading the law" and becoming a lawyer without having to go to law school?