Busting Writer Myths: Writers are Super Intelligent

All the non-writer people seem to think that we're super smart or something.

Let us all take a moment to giggle to ourselves.

Done? Good. Let's move on.

So, um, where did this come from? Are people just learning about writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and Andy Weir and assuming that we're all that intelligent? Cuz I'm not. I need Google Maps to figure out my proximity to anything in the state I live in. I can never remember how to spell unneccessary.(by the way, that's not it.) It takes me an average of five to ten years after the fact to think of that word I was trying to use. *cringe*

I'm not sure exactly what people think they're saying when they assume in their literature classes that we know every fact that we include in our novels for certain(ha) and that we put everything we put in for a reason(HA! HA! HA!) and even that we know what we're doing at all(I'm crying laughing now please stop). Some days I squint at my screen and just go, 'What?' and sometimes I catch myself referencing Winnie the Pooh. So please, my non-writer people, try to have a little understanding here. We're just poor artsy types who want to flounder until we reach the island. Let us do what we're doing without all the unneccessarrry pressure.

Maybe why they think we're more intelligent than we are

1. We act like we know what we're doing. Writers are masters of 'fake it til we make it.' We cover up the fact that we don't know this information by being super vague. We keep messing around with our manuscripts until it looks like it was done by someone with half a brain. So good news! It might be working!
2. Authors of the classics were pretty intelligent. What we're taught in our English classes is classic literature, which was written a long time ago by mostly only people who were qualified for the job(*cough* unlike me).
3. People like to think they can only be taught by someone smarter than them. I feel like this speaks for itself, but seriously. You can learn a life lesson from a three-year-old. Someone doesn't have to be smarter than you to teach you something, but it feels better to believe that you're learning from someone smart.

Why we might be more intelligent than we think

1. Do you have any idea how much braining it takes to make words go? (my all-time favorite writing meme reference because it's so true!) It's a lot of braining, okay? That's why you feel tired when you're done writing, or why when I write too much in one day my brain feels completely fried. You're using all your brain power toward creating something out of nothing. You can't do that with only half a brain. So maybe you're smarter than you think.
2. Doing research is gaining knowledge. One of the biggest subjects of writing humor is all the research we do. You know, with the eighty-three tabs up just to make sure that one line of dialogue is correct. So, when you learn new stuff, you know more stuff, which is becoming more intelligent. See? Logic.
3. We keep track of a buttload of information at a time. How many people do you know who can keep track of the outline, the subplots, the character arcs, the dark secrets, the plot twists, and still keep witty talking scenes going at the same time? It's freakin' hard! And whether or not that buttload of information is written down on a tree's worth of paper because it has a bad habit of leaking out of the cracks in your sanity like mine does, you're still keeping track of it. Give yourself a little credit for that.

Now before we go, some accurate representations of what we look like when we're writing! Which one are you?

1. Typing like crazy, actually writing crap and frying out the brain

2. Slowly going insane but still committed

3. Suffering.

I'm normally #2, but when I'm really in the groove I'm #1. Don't forget to tune in on Thursday, the subject of which I have no idea, but it'll be good! Also today is my birthday.

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