Writers are weird—or at least, this writer most definitely is.
I go to the library on the weekends to have a solid two hours of non-interrupted writing. I am normally joined by one or more members of my Sippy Cups and Semantics writing group. But once in a while, I end up being here by myself.
When that happens I can’t use the private room I always have reserved for us (the rules are that you have to have at least two people to be allowed to use it), so I end up in one of the cozy rooms of this amazing neighborhood library. It’s quiet and there aren’t that many people wandering around.
Today I am in the library alone. I set up just as I normally do, very anxious to go back to my WIP. You see, I am at the point in my novel where things radically change between my two MCs. It’s that moment that both the writer and the readers wait for more than half the book to get to. It’s the moment when your heart grows legs and climbs up your throat, grabs you by the neck and holds you hostage. I had started it at home and now I plan to finish it in this beautiful, sunbathed library.
Except, I can’t do it! Writing a love scene in a very public place is nerve wrecking. It’s almost as if you are the one making love right in front of everybody else. Every word you write has you looking around in all directions, paranoid, fearful of prying eyes, scared that one of the patrons may have developed telepathy.
Instead, you sit down and you write this blog to tell everyone what a weirdo you are, and wait anxiously for the time you leave this amazing place, so you can finish the beautiful, heart-wrenching scene—at least that’s how it sounds in your head—at home.
Has this ever happened to you or am I the only weird one in the world of fiction writing?
Author Natalina Reis 
This totally happens to me! I don’t like writing or working on my novel in public. I don’t even have to be working on a romantic scene, I just feel weird about it! No idea why. I’m not like this about my academic writing, but when it comes to creative writing I hole away in my house!
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I have grown out of being paranoid about most of my writing. Mostly because if I am going to be picky I may never have the chance to write, lol. But love scenes or scenes where emotion runs high…oh boy! Do I have trouble with those. But glad to know I am not the only one 🙂
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Oh I make time, I just lose a lot of sleep!!! lol! It all just flows better for me at home. Good luck with that love scene! And yes, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one either!
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You’re brave. Recently I was wondering about going to the library to write, simply to get away from arguing teenagers, neighbours’ chain saws, the lure of the laundry (ok, lure maybe the wrong word). I decided not to because I didn’t like the thought of people reading over my shoulder. (In November, I was doing nanowrimo and had to use every available opportunity including train journeys. I screamed out loud when a voice behind me said “I like that”. I was weaving between 1943 where someone had just been legitimately shot and fallen- assuming war is legitimate – and 1956 where someone had been found at the bottom of a staircase in suspicious circumstances so my mind was categorically NOT in 2015 on a train driving through the New Forest. Fortunately the over-the-shoulder-reader and I were the only two people at that end of the carriage so my screaming embarrassed only me.)
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That’s hilarious. It would have freaked me out too 🙂 I tend to pick my public “spots” very carefully. I normally will sit with my back to a wall so no-one can read over my shoulder 🙂
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