If you’re like most writers, you spend much of your time with your nose in a book. Writers are always learning, always curious, always searching for new information that will enliven and surprise readers. As a result, writers tend to know things that extend past the realm of common knowledge. Here’s a list of some of the weird things writers know. Feel free to add your own esoteric tidbits!

Writers know:

• How to remove bloodstains from the trunk of a car.
• Twenty different ways to express love.
• How to make a radio from a toothpick, a staple gun, and a crew neck sweater.
• The meanings of words such as variegated, ululation, and consanguine.
• The difference between altered states and parallel universes.
• How to survive being buried in an avalanche.
• What people in the 17th century do (and do not) say, eat, drink, and wear.
• What drugs will stop a heart but not show up in an autopsy.
• How to invent a brand-new language for an alien species.
• Murphy Oil Soap works wonders when washing elephants.
• “Facetious” uses all the vowels in the correct order.
• Why plump red tomatoes are more fun to use in poetry than the lowly turnip.
• How to sum up a novel in twelve words or less.
• One must have a license to keep a bear in Ohio.
• Urban slang, teen-speak, and 18th-century idioms.
• How to survive on Top Ramen and Kool-Aid for two weeks.
• The United Nations University is located in Tokyo.
• The most common word in the English language is “the.”
• Writer’s block is not a myth.
• The joy of eight simple words: “Not bad. I think we can use this!”