In the library

There's something organic and edgy about sitting at a public library computer to write. A stong odor of humanity in various stages of cleanliness permeates the area, and there's a sense of being exposed to lives and germs that you never have to deal with if only use your computer at home. Tinny music seeps out of earbuds from the guy next to you, and more than a few other patrons try to suppress hacking coughs.

I'm uncomfortable and yet there's part of me that is more motivated to write here. Possibly because I don't have access to my refrigerator or sofa, my chores and my dog. Fewer material comforts to distract me, and a feeling that I'm here to work. I also feel strangely comforted by being just one more of the anonymous library patrons, who for one reason or another is here rather than in my cozy house using my own personal computer. I'm no one special here, and that seems to take some pressure off me to write anything of any brilliance or significance.

I'm fighting the feeling of being a fraud, of thinking that I have any right to write a novel, much less write one in a month. The fighting looks like me finding any other thing to do besides write. I'm comforted by remembering an essay by E.B. White in which he writes about finding countless trivial things to do rather than write: straighten the area rugs and pictures on the wall, for example.

Writing is hard. Channeling my imagination onto the page is hard. Keeping my inner critic at bay is hard. I appreciate the words of encouragement I've gotten from my blog posts, the confidence that others have expressed in my ability to do this. I'm not sure why people are confident in my, but I'm going to draw on that when I feel lacking in that department myself.