In my case, there are a lot of answers, and it occurs to me they're sort of interesting. I can admit, I've found myself censoring my impulses to talk about the work many times - sometimes, just so as not to bore people on topics which overexcite me personally. Often, though, it's a similar dynamic to what Day discusses - the way people suddenly get ideas about the person you are, perhaps based on your subjects, or just because you're a frowzy artsy type in a perhaps staid environment.
I happen to work in an area and amongst people who only appreciate me the more once they discover my nerdleries. Even so, it's still atypical for the secretary to have raging Barbarians trotting around in our brains.
When I first began work on Ax, I was still in the mainstream financial services industry. I worked with the guys who suggested perhaps it wasn't such a handy idea to give credit out to everyone, their dog, and that one cool arrangement of decorative grasses on the corner - but it was very much the executive atmosphere you might expect. I loved the guys who ran the place, and still respect them all - but they were the suited types, conservative, career-driven, largely (not all!) the well-off and corporate white men we all know run in such circles.
One of them (one of those not-all I allude to) once accused my writing of being "elegant". Considering he's someone I still chat with on odd occasion, and he's been a Communications executive for many years now - and he's hilarious, creative, and personally delightful - this is on the order of a Very High Compliment. And the piece he was reading wasn't work: it was MY work - my first page, which I was submitting that year for JRW's First Pages Critique.
Another one, and this is a guy I will never forget, was nothing more (nor LESS) than genuinely encouraging. He was a big, brash, funny and friendly guy. He used to call me Angelina Jolie, and we all called him George Clooney. When he learned I was starting a novel, he asked me about it. And he never stopped doing that. He would buzz down the hallway where the Executive Admins all sat in a row, say hello to everybody - and, for me, he *always* had the question, "How's that novel coming, Jolie?"
It seems such a small thing, but it was a memorably fundamental part of the work, back then. I am grateful for his enthusiasm and his pushing, and he may never know just how important he was back in those early stages, when I was researching and trying to teach myself what it was to be a writer. He's part of the reason I have become an author, and enthusiasm like his is what bouys people enough to become published ones, at that.
Nowadays, I have a team replete with nerds such as myself, and they don't think a great deal about my writing, though they know about it. They may be a little surprised when it sells, but will be wonderful about it. One of my coworkers is also a very dear friend, and she is unfailingly supportive and generous. A new one is also a writer, I found out yesterday.
My executives like the value-add my creativity brings to the job. They seem to like TALKING with me, which doesn't hurt. One - himself formidably well educated and formidably intelligent - I think rather likes the idea of having an author on the team. I was told once that helped put me over the top when he interviewed two candidates of relatively similar experience. Whether that is true or not, I do know we discussed the way querying and the work of a writer was helping me to maintain discipline at the time of my (blessedly brief) unemployment. He is interested in history, and may even be a reader someday.
The other officer I support is an especially interesting balance of nice guy and extremely good manager. He's the one I am training to have an admin (and spoiling remorselessly - he's going to be ruined for all other secretaries!), and has a friendly interest. His wife once found my blog, though - and, through it, the Sarcastic Broads, and I understand loved these wonderful friends of mine. And why not? Heh.
I know a few of my coworkers have found my own blog, and a couple I am close enough to, I've even directed them to my excerpts, posted here. Having a thick enough skin to make myself public as an author is part of what I hope will be the endgame in any case, and sometimes it's helpful to share with those you feel safe opening up to. It is just possible, in fact, that one of my followers happens to be someone I work with, but I have never asked and don't intend to.
So - no, I don't play my writing close to the vest anymore, by any stretch. When I was unemployed, I fully expected to be Googled. When I was querying, I hoped for it. I may be still in a backwater of the internet - but the plan is that someday THIS will be a part of my public platform, and there's little sense left in being precious about my work, particularly when I hope I am getting closer to ITS being public as well.
It does make me wonder, though - what would *your* coworkers do?
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