So that's what they're doing

At Shrinking Violet Promotions, a link is provided a place that rates blogs for their Myer-Briggs profiles. A novel idea. I ran my blog through and it came out ISTP. Hmmm. Except for the "I" part (Introversion), every other indicator is the opposite of my personal MB profile, which is INFJ. Interesting, but not as interesting as what I found in the comments section: that the overwhelming majority of those who commented are INFJs!

Years ago when I first took the Myers-Briggs test, I was told that INFJs are one of the smallest, if not the smallest, groups. I filed that information away as interesting trivia and nothing else.

But now that I see so many INFJs at one place, I got to thinking. If it is indeed true that there aren't many INFJs around, then how come such a high percentage of us turned up at one place? The sample is very small, granted, but still.

Can it be that the collection of personality traits/temperaments (I am using these terms not in the narrowly-defined sense, but as overall, laymen terms) are the perfect fit for fiction writers?

I= We need to be able to handle the long hours of solitude necessary for writing, and in fact, draw strength from it.

N= We have to go with our instincts when we write. Unlike mechanics and dancers, we don't rely as much on our senses to understand our world.

F= Emotional appeal is an important factor in fiction. We want to move our readers and tap into their feelings.

J= Despite the heavy emphasis on creative thinking, writers do need to be focused on one project at a time, be structured, and be disciplined in completing tasks.

There are probably other issues than what I've outlined. But thinking about this has helped me understand there is a reason I was born with these traits. Small though we are, INFJs are have the necessary ingredients for writing fiction.