Being a Writer - how to identify a writer at a glance, and how to approach if you do spot one. Also, daybeds - why?

What Being A Writer means...

I hate to disappoint all my readers who imagine me floating around in a fuschia negligee, eating grapes and occasionally scribbling down a sentence of such carefully crafted wordage that it instantly becomes a classic and is quoted on Book of the Week, then lying on my daybed (what is a daybed, exactly?  I have only one bed, which, during the day, becomes a daybed and then reverts to being an ordinary bed bed at night, by dint of, you know, it being night time and everything... Do people have a separate bed for daytime?  If so, why? Does their night time bed become unusable during the day because of..oh, I don't know, a nocturnal Nutella-spreading habit?  Why can't they just use a sofa?  Or the carpet?  As a 'daybed' I mean, not to spread Nutella on) eating Walnut Whips. 

Apparently, this is a daybed. Just looks like someone pimped a garden bench to me.

Being a Writer is not like this. Anyway, I'd look daft in a negligee of any colour, like a circus tent that had escaped its moorings after a really windy night.  No.  Much as I hate to shatter your illusions of me as a wafter and floater, the only part of the above that really holds true for me is the eating of the Walnut Whips.  (Incidentally, also the nocturnal Nutella-spreading habit, but I use bread, not bed.  That's a good slogan now I come to think of it, 'Bread Not Bed'.  I should get that on some T shirts or something..).  Being a Writer is far less romantic than you may imagine, unless you are a writer yourself in which case you know exactly how unromantic it is.  Here is what Being a Writer is really like...

Food - the house rarely contains any.  At least, nothing readily identifiable.  Everything in the freezer looks like this..

or worse.

Housework - hahahhahahahaha... If you hold both hands out in front of you, you might just find the table. Or the dog.  If it's large and has four legs, ask if it wants a walk.  Fifty per cent of the time it will.  The other fifty per cent of the time it will have your dinner on it.  (See above).

Clothing - writers tend towards the 'comfort' end of the spectrum.  If it's wearing this..

and clearly has as much intent of going running as you do of piloting the space shuttle, it may well be a writer. 


Temperament - writers are easily startled.  When approaching one, hold out a piece of chocolate, or a cream puff at the end of a long stick.  This will pacify them for long enough for you to get close, where the smell may well drive you back, but persevere, because a writer has many words of wisdom to impart.  These are usually incoherently muttered, however, the application of wine will render them much more comprehensible.  As will the 'laying on of tenners'.

I hope this helps.  Now, where's the Nutella...?