Panic

            Last Friday I had a shock. It was 8AM. I was sitting at the table with the laptop on and my Writing Practice notebook open ready to type up the latest Scribe post when my wife walked in. I have never told her about Scribe. I don’t think she’d understand what it’s for.

            She told me, when we got married, that she didn’t want me to write about her or her family, or use them as models for my fictional characters. Which I understand. But here was a post which mentioned her in passing, and the row which we’d recently had.

            I didn’t hear the bedroom door opening, or her footsteps down the hallway. I became aware of her entering the living room without looking around. I must have looked pale. I certainly felt sick and queasy. She was bearing down on me. In a few seconds, she could have looked over my shoulder and read what I was typing.

            In a blind panic, I pressed EXIT. The computer asked me if I wanted to save my changes. My heart was hammering inside my chest as I pressed ENTER. The laptop seemed to take an age, but finally, mercifully, the Word document vanished.

            She never said anything about it to me. Not that day, not the next, not this whole week. We’ve been talking and laughing. We even had a wonderful day out together, at the races, and actually, apart from this incident, it’s been a good and happy week. It’s as if she suspected nothing.

            I would pray to God that she hasn’t, except that I don’t believe He interferes with people’s minds (see the film Bruce Almighty). I felt, and still feel disgusted and angry with myself, as though I’d been texting another woman. I know that it would hurt my wife as much.

            Before I met my wife, I didn’t care who ended up in my writing, or how it portrayed them. I still think that, when you’re creating a fictional character, you have to start with a real person. After we got married, I felt blocked and censored because I was trying not to hurt her. I also made mistakes, which led to bad arguments.

            At the end of the day, I’m a writer, I need to write. I need to be able to say what I think, and create fiction as best I can. But, my God, I wish I didn’t have this dilemma every time I pick up a pen.