"It's hard for me to show work while I'm writing, because other people's comments will influence what happens"

Donna Tartt expresses a struggle that many creative individuals face: the vulnerability of sharing unfinished work. When she writes, the process is deeply internal and fluid, involving exploration, mistakes, rethinking, and risk-taking. The text underlines a need for solitude in creation, as the act of exposing work-in-progress can disrupt the creator’s own evolving vision. Others' comments, even from well-intentioned peers, have the power to subtly direct or reshape the developing project. The interplay of suggestion, praise, criticism, or even curiosity acts as a force, nudging the creator away from original instincts toward something altered, potentially safer, or less authentic.

Writing is rarely linear and seldom arrives fully formed. It’s an act of discovery: each draft, each word, further clarifies what the story wants to be. Allowing others to see an unfinished work invites external interpretation at a time when the piece is most impressionable, still malleable in the writer’s hands. Even thoughtful feedback can trigger doubt or force solutions that meet the expectations or preferences of others, rather than the unique vision of the writer. The creative process requires an environment where ideas can fail and be rebuilt in private, where uncertainty is permissible without immediate clarification or validation.

Tartt identifies the delicate psychological balance involved in creating something new. Creativity thrives in privacy, where the mind can wander and experiment without judgment. Sharing work too soon introduces outside influences, which can solidify uncertainties into obstacles or redirect intentions. Writers must protect the space where ideas are still forming, maintaining an independence of voice. Tartt’s perspective reveals how early exposure to opinions, however insightful or supportive, can inhibit the organic evolution of art, and how essential it is for writers to own their solitude until the work is ready for the world.