Do your coworkers show interest in your writing?

blacbird said:

I have no co-workers, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell them about my writing.

caw

Click to expand...

It's not something I ever volunteer, but sometimes I'm asked and I can't lie.

I once mentioned to my supervisor that I wrote (she asked what I did for a hobby). She made a big deal out of it, then proceeded to tell the entire team, who all asked me what my story was about. I found it very uncomfortable, even though I liked them.

My colleagues know I write and a number of them came to my book launch, and I was also featured in the staff magazine. These days they occasionally ask me what I'm writing, but as they are not writers, I realise they are just being polite and I keep things low key. I certainly never expected them to show any interest, so I was very pleasantly surprised by their reaction.

I never talk about my writing with coworkers. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t care.

Tchaikovsky said:

I’m not a full time author yet, so I still have a 9-5 day job in a corporate office. I’ve only told a few coworkers about my writing pursuits. (I’m normally a reserved person)

The thing I’ve noticed is, when I tell them the good news about getting an agent or landing a publisher, the most they’d say is a polite “Congratulations!” then ask no further questions. Absolutely zero questions on what my book is about, or who the agent/publisher is, etc.

This is true for both the coworkers I’m close with, and those on my team.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing? I’m not expecting pats on the back, but I’ve been a little surprised none of them proceeded to ask more. Especially because if someone were to tell me they’re writing a novel, at the very LEAST I’d ask what it’s about. But that could just be because writing is my life!

Click to expand...

Oh goodness. Work is for work. When I'm working, I want to hear about someone's novel in progress as much as I want to hear them rambling on about their dreams. Sure, it's fascinating to them, but it's boring af to everyone else.

Now a published book is a different matter. It's a finished product, something tangible.

Dreams are always boring tho'.

When I first started writing (about 2010 or so) I told all my friends and family. It was way premature on my part, as I’m only just now querying for the first time.

When I was tempted to tell coworkers, I recalled the character Toby Flenderson from the Office (US). Every once in a while he’d mention his character doing something in his latest manuscript, and everyone would groan. It was just one of many aspects of Toby that everyone hated.

I decided not to tell any of my coworkers, and I’m glad I didn’t. They wouldn’t understand, anyway.

In order to be curious about something, you have to know a little bit about the subject, and I'm guessing your coworkers might not be into reading and writing, so it probably doesn't occur to them to ask questions about your writing related news.

That said, getting an agent/publisher is a pretty big deal, and it does seem odd that your coworkers aren't interested in knowing more about it even though they're not writers. But then, it might just be because of being busy and preoccupied. It's really hard these days to take interest in the world/people around you, unless, say, you're a naturally curious person . . . or a writer or you happen to have the same interests as other people (that's why it's important to find like-minded people who share your interests).

I wonder if they're just not readers (I know being on this site, it's hard to conceptualize), or not readers in your genre, and taking it a step beyond that, have no idea the challenge of getting an agent or book deal. And often if people don't feel like they have something smart to contribute, they shut up and eat their lunch to avoid appearing like they're not in the know.

At one of my jobs, people were almost too excited and encouraging about my writing ambition. They'd ask me about my progress constantly, which was awkward when all I had to report was, "WELL, I started over again back to chapter one!" None of them had a clue about writing, and thought it was as simple as finishing a draft and seeing it at Barnes and Noble the next month. It made me feel ridiculously slow and useless lol, but their faith that I would make it was nice. I'm pretty sure if I ever landed a book deal with those co-workers, they'd expect me to move into a mansion right away and send them generous gifts.

My current co-workers were great cheerleaders during Nanowrimo, but once that month was over they stopped caring altogether. We're booksellers, and literally every other person you run into fancies writing so it gets a bit "whatever" after awhile. I understand that.

I'm beginning to think that talking about writing with casual friends or co-workers is generally unhealthy. Unless they're in on the process and helpful for brainstorming, I find their reactions discouraging one way or the other. I'm either a dime a dozen, or feel pressured to be the next Stephen King or something lol.

For what it's worth, I write music for film and TV, and my coworkers are like, "Woah that's cool. What TV shows?" I tell them the shows aren't released yet, but they will be in six months. At that point, they usually say, "Oh ok. By the way did you file those papers I needed?"

I think very few people are actually interested in my hobbies and passions. If it doesn't affect them, they won't care. Lol I can barely get my family to read my stories. And they're my family.

I tend to share my music with fans only. When I'm at parties or social events, I don't really mention it. I'd rather cast my pearls before music lovers. Same thing with writing. Not a lot of people in my family read, so I don't really share my stories with them.

When I was in my corporate day job, the coworkers I shared a room with were interested to a point. They'd ask generic questions, much like I would ask if someone would tell me they were taking up beekeeping. It's vaguely interesting, and if they're excited and want to talk about it, that's great, but I don't know enough about it to have follow up questions. So when I would talk about writing books, I would get vague interest, not a lot of questions beyond the typical ones, and only a *very* few said, "I want to read it!" - and they are avid readers and friends outside of work.

I don't mention my writing much to the people around me. Generally they're either utterly uninterested, or full of well-meaning but obviously inexpert "advice."

I made the mistake of mentioning my writing to my sister-in-law, and got a long, long lecture about how she heard of a self-published author who did this and that and now is rich and famous. (Yeah, I've read those stories, too). I tried to explain that I'm not cut out for self-publishing (lots of reasons, foremost of which is that I'm lousy at self-promotion), and that I had decided to pursue trade publishing, but she had no interest in hearing about that. She just kept carrying on about self-publishing and getting manuscripts copyrighted right away "so nobody can steal them," etc.

Even my boyfriend, who's generally a good level of interested-but-not-intrusive, keeps harping on about this friend of his who's an amazing artist, and how I should get her to illustrate my PB scripts. I've explained a dozen times that that it doesn't matter how talented she is, that's simply not how the industry works, and that it's the publisher who pairs illustrators and authors. However, he seemed to interpret my words to mean, I dunno, that I don't trust his artistic judgement and am just saying that stuff to make excuses (I haven't seen her work. I"m sure it's great), and kept pushing for me to "at least talk to her about it." He's pretty much let it go now, but he still brings it up from time to time when he's had too much to drink.

I feel like all you gals and guys are kind of like my co-workers on this writing journey and that we're all scribbling or typing away at our goals.

My boss asked once...

Never came up again

I have determined that basically no one close to me gives a hoot about my writing. Some feign interest just to be polite, which is the best I can expect. Sure, some will buy my books, but few will actually read them. My best fans are are my beta readers. They will read my writing, ask questions and give me their honest opinions. If they constitute my fan base, then that justifies the effort I put into it.

The only way my co-workers would care if I wrote would be if I was writing the storyline for the latest videogame.

One coworker knows I love to write and has bought me notebooks and pens and such, then another is a good friend of mine. Well, they are both friends, so I guess that doesn't really count :/ but I seriously doubt anyone else I work with would care unless I was an established writer with many works having been published.

I loathe talking about writing. It does come up because I dedicate so much of my free time to it, but as an unpublished writer I feel the need to remind them that I might be awful when they get overexcited and congratulatory, there is currently nothing to congratulate me on except having potentially delusional levels of motivation.

I wouldn't really expect anyone except my nearest and dearest to care, and even then unless I end up with a publishing deal the checking in on how it's going feels a bit embarrassing, especially when how it's going is a new rejection in my inbox, wah.

Some of my colleagues know I write and a couple will read my blogs and ask me how the writing is going. Sometimes they're more enthusiastic than my own mother, which is nice .

I tell a lot of people at work I'm writing a book. They always want to know what it's about, something I've not yet got down as concisely as I'd like. They seem genuinely excited for me. Some express an interest in reading it.

I'm a contracted medical provider so I see lots of people, and I've known many of them for years, but I don't work with the same people every day.

I used to be an editor of a small online culture magazine and worked with close to a dozen people. After we sold the magazine, we all kept in touch and when I told them I wrote a book, I offered it to them all for free but they all declined and purchased it instead. I don't know how common that is but we're all very supportive of each other's endeavours.

My coworkers know and are pretty cool about it. Then again, I work in a used bookstore, so there's lots of creativity around. One guy is a writer/graphic designer, another girl does comics, and such.

I started a small creative-writing club at work. At our peak we had five people. We would meet over lunch every couple weeks, shared work samples, did a couple writing exercises. We don't really meet any more, it sort of petered out. But I'm glad I tried it!

When other people at work ask me what my stories are about, I try to deflect by just saying they're weird, because they are. Over the last two years, only the VP of communications has pressed me more than once for plot details.

But, I work in ed tech, so everybody's overeducated and many are artsy.