Writers are anyone with a keyboard or a pad of paper nearby.

Someone recently asked me, "How do writers write?"

I didn't know what they were looking for, so I said, "With desperation."

Surprisingly, that wasn't what they were looking for.

But a Google search for just that very question isn't very helpful either. The search term "how do writers write" had a first return to some website called famouswhy.com. The author of the piece, Cristina Nuta, lights a firecracker under the question and gives a gripping in-depth analysis of how writers actually write. Her view (including her own typos):

"They prefer to be alone and enjoy silence. They may also work in a dark room, where the sun can hardly penetrate. Moreover, some writers have a mess in the rooms they work in, because they are surrounded my several materials, books, essays, sheets of papers and so on. But this environment does not bother them, instead it gives them inspiration. On the other hand, there are writers who prefer a light room, painted also in bright colours. They also need to have a large balcony and feel nature is taking part in their creation of an extraordinary work of art."

((zzZZzZzz))

I'm sorry. Dozed off there for a second.

Cristina more or less just said all writers are either befuddled hermits living in man-made caves overflowing with their trash, or they're blossoming hippies who smell of patchouli that live in neon yellow rooms while humming mantras to Mother Earth.

I don't know what Cristina classifies as a "writer" though. I'm sitting here at a computer screen at 2am (hooray, insomnia!) in a room with a lamp lit while the television hums away in the corner, all the while nothing is terribly out of place or messy. Oh, and the walls are painted a very toned down color. I'd call it "Cookie Crumb" (so says the Behr paint website), which is in the terrible middle ground between "cave" and "neon yellow."

Maybe I'm not a writer then. I need to work on stereotypes to fulfill what the much-insightful Cristina says I should be. I'm sure she also thinks I need to smoke two packs a day, drink a fifth of scotch, and refuse to bathe until head lice is my closest friend. That, or I need to invest in Birkenstocks and have a vase of daisies at my side while I move to some nature reserve where my only high is the smell of wild animals outside my door.

Though Cristina does tell us this nugget of typo-ridden wisdom: "A very important thing while writing is the moment of the day to write and food: for some writers the brain only works until lunchtime and food is vital to keep them going."

Pssh. Amateur writers. Let's see them write something at 2am.