Do you keep your writing a secret

[heidi lothringer]

I do I wish I didn’t but I grew up being discouraged about everything. Which i am trying to get over but it’s hard

[Ambar Gill]

I do too. My family knows but my friends don't. I tend to announce things and fall through on them because of self-sabotage and intrusive thoughts preventing me from finishing them. Which is why I haven't said anything about my writing. I don't want to announce it and get everyone's hopes up, only to not finish. But my goal this year is to complete it, so fingers crossed!

[Nick Creighton]

This is something my wife and I have recently discussed. She had a good point, what if for instance you write steamy romance novels and your kids school friends or worse kids school bully find these. The outcome can be life altering not just for yourself but others in your life.

This is just one example of many. Whats your thoughts on this?

[octbeluga]

I used to before like atleast for a few years but eventually I did feel comfortable sharing it with a few selective people who were close to me. They used to write too so it was like a give and take thing, however I still don't share everything I write with them.

[Blueberry Dragon]

I did at one point in time, but I no longer write enough to warrant keeping it a secret. So I share what I write in the hope that others' encouragement will spur me on to write more.

[Joel Hensley]

I do. I've been writing for decades, since middle school, but just for myself. I've only been writing on platforms like this for about a month now. (I just learned about this today actually.) I've told maybe five people. I don't want any of them to read anything that I write. I'm much more comfortable having strangers read my work. I'm also an artist, and have been running my own business for over three years now. Almost all of my friends and family know about my art business. The number of people who think I should draw this or paint that or are tired of seeing this or that or think I should draw it this way or that, oh my gosh, is unreal. There's NO way they would be able to handle the topics I write about or how I write about them or anything like that.

[Nevo Ifeanyi]

I don't keep my writing a secret. I believe that my writings should be made open to people who in turn gives me the motivation to write more thus becoming better and better and increasing my esteem as a writer

[JennyorAlice]

Originally, yes. I didn't tell anyone at first that I was writing anything until my husband found out one day by accident. I had sent in a copy of my book to have it copyrighted online and my hubby saw the receipt from where I paid the fee for that because I forgot that it was still sitting on the printer by the time he got home. I originally didn't say anything because I wasn't sure how my friends and family were going to take it that I had written a book. So far, everyone has been pretty nice and supportive about it.

[NoviceReader]

That is why copyright is there, which may be the effect of keeping secrecy. 

[Tiffany Dowell]

For the most part, I do. I carried blank books. Dollar store blank journals I would write in. One day in high school, one of my poems fell out onto the floor, and was found by a school counselor. My writing was pretty dark, as my life was pretty dark. I got called into the counselors office.

I'm thinking "Oh sh*t, this is a mental health check or an are you suicidal check or are things ok at home issue now."

Turns out, the counselor looked at me and point blank asked me why I didn't select Creative Writing as one of my electives? I just sat there looking at her, and she backhandedly hinted that if I didn't take Creative Writing, she would affect my graduation or something like that, maybe something in a record, I don't remember, but it felt like a threat.

I enrolled in CW the next chance I got, finished it, and pretty much never wrote again after that. She took something that for all writers is deeply personal and exploited it.

[Meghan Sica]

For the most part I keep my writing to myself. My husband has seen some of what I've written, but I haven't finished an entire idea or story, yet. I usually end up with many different ideas and try to combine them. Then I get discouraged or lose focus and stop writing. It comes in spurts, I get excited and run with an idea until it fizzles out.

[janderson32]

I've talked to a lot of my friends about my writing, and my parents. It isn't something I discuss at work or with acquaintances, but yeah, the people close to me know. Everything I've written has just been for my own eyes or to share with a couple of friends, though - if I were to ever actually publish something, I would be open about it with everyone.

[DATo]

I share my writing online hoping people will like what I've written but terrified that they will read it and think I've wasted their time. I am always eager to read the work of other amateur writers. I've often found some exceptionally fine writing coming out of the amateur sector.

[Jodi Townsend]

The closest people in my life know. Many don't. My mother tells me I've been reading and writing since I learned how to, so for a while, it was known by everyone. As an adult, I've gone through many years where I stopped because of issues happening at the time, which, when I look back, was the ideal time to write. Now, life gets in the way too much, and I realize I must regulate the time to write, or it just won't happen. But I think that the three people in my life who know I am writing currently hold me accountable for finishing. Other than my sense of responsibility to do what I've always wanted to do.

[Sarah Fisher_LP]

This is something my wife and I have recently discussed. She had a good point, what if for instance you write steamy romance novels and your kids school friends or worse kids school bully find these. The outcome can be life altering not just for yourself but others in your life.

This is just one example of many. Whats your thoughts on this?

I think this is a primary reason a lot of writers keep their work under wraps. A lot of my early work reflected the CPTSD I was suffering through at the time I wrote it. While there is a lot of interesting original material, if a 6th grader is sending her two valiant female heroes to slaughter the two male leaders of the neighboring country for enslaving their people and forcing them into torture factories, you have to ask yourself what is going on. Adult me has an besmirching task of deciding what is salvageable, if any, from these early efforts. I keep procrastinating this task. The early poems were even worse: profanity and graphic descriptions of human flesh reconstructing itself back to life. Should I bring that ugliness to life and try to redeem it? After all, I recovered from the CPTSD. Or maybe I should focus on my new life and just try to move on. I haven't decided what to do just yet.

I didn't have the option of hiding my writing as my teachers identified my writing gift to my parents without my permission. Even if I wasn't fool enough to give my first incompetent novel to my mom to read, or try to get my novel published at 14 which generated some interesting mail, I had been pegged. This allowed my father to continuously insult my novel writing ambitions as "pie in the sky" and claim "nobody made a living from writing novels" over and over like the abusive broken record he was. I'm not sure hiding my writing would have made my life any better, but it goes to show that some folks might have good reasons for going the Emily Dickinson route and not going public.