I Don't Write in Public

 
I don't.
 
When I write, I do it in my chair, at my desk, in my office, in my house (upstairs, second door on the left). Sometimes, if it's nice out, I'll sit on my screened-in back porch and write there (though I miss my nice speakers for my music when I do that; laptop speakers are not the same).
 
In my possibly-more-interesting-than-it-sounds past, when I went to such geekfests as the Game Developers Conference as both a geek *and* a writer, I would sometimes write in public. Because there was no option. Pop open the laptop (or, if we go back far enough, whip out the legal pad) in a comfortable spot and go to work putting one word after the other. But I didn't like it. So now I don't do it.
 
I don't consider writing either a public thing or even a social thing.
 
In a paraphrase of George Thoroughgood:


I write alone. And when I write alone, I prefer to be by myself.
 
I don't understand why NaNoWriMo participants want to go to "write-ins". I don't understand the appeal of coffee shops (who goes to a coffee shop alone?) or even libraries (those are for reading what other people have written).
 
If I was a people person, I don't know that I would be a *WRITER*.
 
Or maybe I am too much of a people person. When I'm around people, I like to talk (possibly talk about writing). So, as a social curtesy, I don't go to write-ins. I would want to talk to you while you're trying to write and we would think the other was being rude.
 
I'm happy to hang out and chat up before I write, or after I write. But when it comes time to write, to borrow a phrase from Larry the Cable Guy: "That's me time."
 
So don't look for me to be writing while laughing with friends and/or sipping a hot chai. It's not gonna happen.
 
Just so you know.
 
-David
 
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