Road Trip Wednesday: You’re Writing – Who Knew

I hadn’t decided what I wanted to blog about yet for today, when I saw that this weeks Road Trip Wednesday over at YA Highway was on the topic of peoples reactions when they hear I’m writing a novel. So I figured I’d play along and just blog about that.

People’s reactions tend to vary depending upon how they know me. Since I’m dyslexic, some people that know me well were suprized when I first started writing. But I’ve always been extreamly imaginative, so most of my close friends and family members simply accepted my writing as a given.

The surprize is more likely to come from people that I know professionally. I’m an engineer by day. I think my inability to read is what pushed me to toward math and science as a kid. I didn’t want people to think I was stupid, so I wasted a lot of time honing my mental math skills. Then when I got older I realized that engineering was something I’m pretty good at.

I’m a total geek and get along well with most engineers. But as a whole, we aren’t normally an overly literate lot. I have a couple of engineering friends that enjoy reading, but not many. They’re more likely to be into video games or something really cool like that. Clearly they need to mastered the art of listening to audio books and playing video games at the same time like me.

I do sometimes get blank stares from my engineering friends when I tell them I spend all my free time writing novels. But I think I get even more shocked expressions when I tell my writer friends that I’m an engineer. Many non-writers think that it’s something they could do if they tried. But most non-engineers admit that they don’t understand what I do all day.

Joke of the Day

What do you get when you cross an elephant and a mountain climer?
Nothing - you can't cross anything with a scaler.