I don’t understand writers who talk online about their writing, or who meet to talk about their writing. I don’t mean I judge them. No. I don’t understand them.

I mean, it makes sense on an intellectual level, right? But when I try to do that, I feel like I’m going through the motions of being a social writer and getting nothing in return.

Online, other writers always seem so hopeful and so excited; they want to show off their ideas, and share what they’re doing with others. They talk about their main characters and what motivates them.  They contribute to hashtag threads on social media about plot, character, and world-building. And they read other people’s in-process writing all the time. They offer each other useful suggestions. It’s so kind and joyous. 

I admire them, but I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t want to talk about writing or socialize around it. I just want to write. It’s a solitary activity, something my brain does. Writing is what I do. 

When I’m not actually sitting down and writing, I’m thinking about writing. Sometimes I work on novels, in my head, for years. I’m on the bus, thinking about where my protagonist is going and why. I have done that all my life. Literally. I remember telling myself stories in kindergarten. I also learned to read in kindergarten, so there may be some connection, but mostly it was just the way my brain worked.

I didn’t talk to people about my writing, then, either. They didn’t need to know I was telling stories to myself all the time. It was private. They wouldn’t understand.

Occasionally I jot down notes about what I imagine. More often, I just let my ideas vanish into thin air, because what I imagine on the bus almost never makes it into the final work.

These days, I’m suddenly working on a novel I’ve been thinking about for a while; it was partly drafted several times, and I know exactly how the events occur and how the story ends, but I couldn’t get a proper handle on the main character’s voice until now, and I can’t tell a story if I don’t know exactly what kind of person the protagonist is. 

The work is going well, as it always does when I have found my way. I sit down to write for a moment, and suddenly it’s an hour later. I tell myself I’ll just work ten more minutes, and it’s yet another hour later. 

It’s not creation, exactly. It’s more like cutting. Actually sitting down to write a book involves closing down all the other storylines I had in my head, and watching the story write itself. And I do that by myself, not in the company of others.