Career envy

[pegkerr]

Minicon was tremendous fun, as I've said, but I've noticed another reaction, one that I recognize, which often hits me several days after a good con.

Career envy.

I've thought a lot about this over the years and kijjohnson and I, thank god, have discussed this often and carefully, which really helps. I love the chance to hobnob with other writers, to catch up with them and get their news. But sometimes, yes, I do feel wistful, when I hear of someone else's success.

I am very thankful for a piece of excellent advice I received from Tim Powers, one of my teachers at Clarion, at the very beginning of my career. "Try to learn to become a writer without also becoming a jerk. It's natural to be ambitious, but don't associate with people only on the basis of how they can 'help your career.' This field is small, so don't bad mouth people. It will inevitably get back to them, and it will make you look small--and you will become small and petty, if you let yourself think that way."

It was very good advice, and it made me think a lot about being ambitious as a writer, and how that would play out in my interactions with others. Over the years, I've seen other writers who didn't have the benefit of such good advice, who let their lust for advancement and envy of others grow so large that they inevitably treated people badly.

I remember an old saying: "You can't keep birds from flying around your head, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair." I try to feel happy for my writing friends when they achieve success, but I realize it's natural for me to want those successes, too. I've also thought about the fact that success at writing isn't a zero-sum game. Just because you have had success at writing doesn't mean that I can't--as if there's a finite amount of success in the world, and you're hogging it all.

I also realize that making a writing career means balancing a lot of considerations: the quality of your work, time, family, other jobs, speed of production, etc. You may be doing really well at one thing, but you can't manage another. You may envy one aspect of another's career, and not realize that they are envying a totally different aspect of your career that you are managing well. pameladean told me a story at Minicon, when we were talking about juggling conflicting desires. She said that Steve Brust had called her and asked her, "Tell me again why I don't want to take a full-time day job." She told him that if he was really wavering, he could call me and I would remind him.

I have to fight the tendency in myself to see the glass as half empty, to focus on what I haven't got. I find that I can be really happy for a friend's professional success or personal arrangement and at the same time keenly desire to have that success for myself. So when I get together with other people at a con, I see what other writers have achieved, or how they run their life differently from mine, and I think to myself, "Ooooohhhh. I want that toooooo!" I tell myself that this is not quite envy, because envy buys into zero-sum thinking. Envy means wishing others ill, and the desire to exchanges places with someone who is successful: "I want to get that award--and for you to not get it."

kijjohnson have been neck-and-neck through much of our careers, but naturally, someone will sell first, and someone will be nominated for an award first. It has helped us a lot to be honest with each other about our mixed feelings. Our reward is that we really can celebrate each other's successes. We trust that we each mean it when we say to each other, "Great! Fantastic! Um . . . I can't wait until I reach that milestone, too!"

I have to fight against envy when considering these writers:

I wish I could skip the day job and stay home and write like any number of full-time professional writers, like pameladean or gaimanblog.

I want to go on a book tour like blackholly.

I wish I could finish the lettergame book that kijjohnson and I had planned, and it could be as good as the one 1crowdedhour did.

I wish I could produce words faster, like truepenny or papersky, who seem to churn pages out at an amazing rate. (truepenny mentioned she'd gotten 2591 words written while at Minicon.)

I want a cool laptop that I can take to hang out all day at coffee shops like Laurie Winter. And, um, there's that McKnight Foundation grant . . .

I wish I could write poetry, like elisem or papersky or any number of others.

I wish that I had the ability to write humor and the confidence with characterization and dialogue that epicyclical has.

I wish I could write about sex with the sure touch, honesty and delicacy that kijjohnson has.

I wish I had pameladean's command of the English language and ability to come up with the perfect simile and metaphor.

I admire monkeycrackmary for her deft use of everyday detail, pacing and dialogue.

I wish I could travel, like minnehaha B and K. I wish I throw great parties like they do.

I wish I had the sort of self-confidence that minnehaha B has--not offensive cockiness at all, but the real understanding that he has found his niche, and he's really good at it, and people need to learn what he is in the position to teach them.

I wish I lived in a country that was SENSIBLE enough to provide HEALTH INSURANCE like papersky, so I didn't have to do a day job that eats up my time to get it.

Why some other writers might envy me

I've had two books published, by a respected publisher. The first was pretty good, and the second was really good (I won't say great. But really good).

I have a house. A lot of writers I know live in cramped apartments.

I have a husband and two lovely children. I know writers who have gotten divorced because their spouses didn't support them, and others who always felt too poor to have children--and now regret it.

I have a job that pays me quite well and provides benefits for my family. I've talked with writers who live in fear that they will fall ill or have an accident because they have no health insurance.

I have a new book that's well underway. And it's looking like it's going to be pretty cool.

And . . . I may envy truepenny's 2000+ words at Minicon, but I wrote 354 words this morning. msscribe already told me she envied me because she wrote only 115 words last night!

One final thought to leave you with: Someone remarked to me sometime during Minicon this past weekend that Envy is the only one of 7 deadly sins that provides no pleasure whatsoever.

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I envy you lots. =) But I know the feeling, sort of--my fiance's also in grad school and he's doing so much better than I am. Sigh.

And "You can't keep birds from flying around your head, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair" is a terrific quote, and one I need to hold on to.

My turn!

[queerasjohn.livejournal.com]

I wish I could write characters as powerfully human as pegkerr.

the second was really good (I won't say great. But really good).

Bzzzt! This reader disagrees with the "really good"-not-"great". How about "one of only a handful of books which I've connected with enough to cry", or "one of the most powerful books I've ever read", or "I have trouble putting into words just how wonderful I think this book is"?

Seriously, though, I know what you mean about not!envy -- it's more like admiration, or respect, but not quite either of those. *ponders*

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

::sigh:: I'm slightly envious of people who don't have school. I try to write, and I've been writing more lately, but I always have homework, and I usually have after school stuff, and I can't pull myself out of bed that early in the morning, being a teenager. Finding time to write is very difficult, and I don't want to put a certain time to write, because it will inevitably be missed on several occasions for school or family and then I'll just quit all together. I did write 242 words last night, which was encouraging.

Oh, and I think Wild Swans was great. It's one of my favorite books, one that I take with me when I go on trips just in case the house burns down while I'm gone and put in my purse in case my luggage gets lost. It's up there with A Little Princess.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I understand what you mean. Boy, do I ever.

I am terribly competitive myself--thus The Madly Savage Mink Which Is My Competitiveness--and I do have a lot of trouble with the part of myself that wants to crouch in a corner with its hackles raised and just snarl at anyone else's good news. It helps me, at least a little, to let go of things that aren't my game. I would love to be able to write poetry, but I know that I can't, and I'm at peace with that. So I can admire other people's amazing poetry without TMSMWIMC making that low-level chainsaw noise in the back of my head. Laurie's grant is fantastic; I don't--and don't want to--write YA fiction, so I can let that go, too. So I'm not a complete festering ball of resentment. Most days.

At least I'm to the point where I can laugh at myself about it. And that helps a lot.

[megancrewe.livejournal.com]

Writer envy--a feeling I am well familiar with. :) Sometimes it does seem like there's only a limited amount of success, and anyone who has it is an obstacle. I've found what's helped most, for me, to get past the anxious and jealous feelings is to be out there talking and socializing with other writers, on LJ and in critique groups and so on. Reading posts like this one. They remind me that even the most successful writers are human, have their own insecurities and worries, and, after all, were once where I am right now. So what's to say that someday I won't be where they are? And as long as I'm feeling like that, it's easy to honestly say that I admire you for getting as far as you have and wish you well in getting further. It gives me hope to know it's attainable, even if not to me, quite yet.

[misia.livejournal.com]

OOooh, does this ever ring bells! I'm a savagely self-competitive horror who has had to learn -- and it has sometimes been SO hard -- to let it be okay if I'm not doing Absolutely Everything, Incredibly Well. It isn't so much other people I have a problem with, except insofar as they remind me that I haven't yet won that award / published in that genre / written as many books / made as big an advance / been interviewed or reviewed in Journal X / won that fellowship / etc. etc. etc.

It's never been so much about begrudging others their successes as feeling like I'm really screwing up because I'm not doing whatever it is as well as they are and therefore I'm behind the curve, tired, outmoded, not aggressive enough, not productive enough, whatever.

I struggle so hard to not beat myself black and blue with this kind of stuff, and interestingly, one of the things that's been most helpful is offering help to people in the field. I'm one of those people who gladly parts with the contents of my Rolodex, with info on where to do readings and where not to, on sympathetic reviewers, whatever I've come up with over the years that I think might be helpful. You want feedback on your book proposal? I'm your girl. Someone to crosscheck your index? Buy me dinner and it's a done deal. Maybe it's horribly narcissistic, but it makes me feel less like a fuckup if I can pitch in in some way, less like I missed the boat by not doing whatever-it-was myself. I usually feel genuinely happy about seeing projects I've helped on in some way or shape, even if it was something really minor that I did, and am much less likely to find myself inadequate in comparison.

Earlier today I was at my favorite local bookstore and I actually was just so tickled to see several books on the shelves -- new releases -- by friends of mine, and to be able to look at them and say "hey, I read the first draft of a chapter in that one," and "I helped encourage her when she was working on that book proposal," and "I'm so glad I was able to provide the citation that he was looking for four years ago when he was starting to work on that, doesn't the book look wonderful? He must be so proud of it."

And that, for me, is better than "oh, man, he's got his seventh book out already, and I only have five..."

At least it leads to less self-torment.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Peg's post got me thinking a lot about this.

Anne Lamott & Bird by Bird

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I posted this in response to vassilissa's thoughts on the same subject, and then thought I'd stick it here, too. Because it's the sort of thing that deserves a little proselytizing.

Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird has a chapter called "Jealousy," where she goes into this problem at length. I reread it periodically, both because it is howlingly funny, and because it helps a great deal with keeping perspective on the whole damn mess.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The comment about envy was pnh, I think.

I think the people I envy most are people who can write good/sellable short stories in less time than it takes to write a novel. Writing short stories is something I find very hard indeed, and this makes all the career advice that is based on selling short stories in order to get noticed enough to sell a novel quite uncomfortable. I've managed to write one short story with which I am happy in my life.

There's also a degree of envy for people who are published, of course. I hope both of these feelings are not zero-sum thinking.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Oh good hells, I can't even tell you how much I identify with this post.

I am almost continuously convinced that everyone I know is a better, faster, more insightful writer than I am. My envy there is so widely inclusive, I couldn't even start listing people. But the thing I envy most about other writers is their friendships.

Because I write children's fantasy, I don't know that many other fantasy authors and those I have met are still people I don't yet know WELL. I envy you, Peg, for having kijjohnson to go through all this with you and pameladean and others to talk about what comes next.

When I was working on Tithe, my writing friends, particularly mroctober, kept me going. We traded scenes from our books back and forth, critiqued each other and traded whatever connections or insight we could scrape together. Then, I sold and he didn't. Now, I believe with all my heart that he will sell his book, but in the interim, we've both been struggling with the strain of envy on our relationship.

And now, with Spiderwick, I feel like I'm in completely new territory without a compass. So, I envy people their writerly friendships. It must be great to have someone understand your frustrations and fears.

writing envy

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

I fight it, but I often experience writing envy. A new form of it took me by surprise recently: envy of what other people are writing, particularly the momentum, the discipline, the certainty about it all. I'm so used to envying the words on the page that was startled by how much I could envy just the intention, before the words ever hit the page at all.

I'm glad to know it's not just me alone. So true that it is one of the least entertaining sins. Good to remember.


Caroline

[pameladean]

This is why I no longer read Locus.

We must have been very, very tired when we had that conversation at Minicon. I don't think that Steven was contemplating a day job. I think he was writing something about what a really bad day would be like if one worked for a bunch of lawyers. I think he is committing fiction.

And I'll tell you what I admire about your working methods and their results -- you'll throw yourself into anything, no matter how scary or complex, no matter how little you know about it, if the story requires it. I couldn't have written something like The Wild Swans if my life depended on it.

As for the similes and metaphors -- I deliberately learned to do that, having been bitten by Aristotle at a tender age. I subsume it under viewpoint. It's actually tremendous fun. For me. But I didn't begin by knowing how to do it.

Pamela

POSTSCRIPT!

[pameladean]

Yipes, that sounded all wrong. No matter how little you know about it INITIALLY, I mean -- you're willing to find out what you need to know. I didn't mean you wrote in blitheful ignorance -- quite the contrary.

Argh.

Pamela

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the way you feel. I don't think it's wrong to feel this way, I think it's natural and who knows, maybe it could even inspire us to new heights if we looked at what other people are doing and saw past our own limitations. I try not to dwell on it, but just do my best, because in the end the toughest critic I have is me. There are many writers whose humor, originality, and deftness with words I envy, but you're right, success is not a 'limited' quantity, and maybe this envy will serve to make me try harder. Hopefully. I do have days where I don't think I can do it, but I know that I wouldtry anyway because who's to say that it won't one day happen.
*hug* I know the feeling.

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

I wish that I had the ability to write humor and the confidence with characterization and dialogue that epicyclical has.

*weeps gratefully on Peg's shoes* To be included in a list with people like those other writers that you envy.

You and Holly are my inspirations, just so's you know. :) I would say I envy you, and I do, but you've been such a help to me and always so kind and generous with your time and advice, it would seem ungrateful to envy you.

I remember emailing back and forth with an author (it was Tom Holt) who told me he envied the community fanfiction writers have - the instant feedback and the always-accessible support. I remember Holly told me the same thing. Original writing seems like this high, cold, lonesome glacier - something to aspire to and yet so far away. ;) Posts like this remind me that published writers are human which is good to remember, I think, when you're just starting out.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*weeps gratefully on Peg's shoes* To be included in a list with people like those other writers that you envy.

*Laughs.* I really do mean it, Cassie.

You and Holly are my inspirations, just so's you know. :) I would say I envy you, and I do, but you've been such a help to me and always so kind and generous with your time and advice, it would seem ungrateful to envy you.

Any working author I've ever met has had mentors who've helped them along. And any working author who has any sense of ethics understand that you can repay that only by paying forward. Besides, mentoring is so much fun! I get real pleasure from seeing the success of people I've chosen to mentor.

Original writing seems like this high, cold, lonesome glacier - something to aspire to and yet so far away. ;) Posts like this remind me that published writers are human which is good to remember, I think, when you're just starting out.

As for "published writers are human," I understand what you mean; I felt the same way when I was getting started. For me, it was making the transition from short stories to novels that seemed so impossible, that only gods could do it.

I was so grateful for Tim Powers's advice, warning about the danger for writers of failing to stay human. They come to believe that they are demi-gods, and they become insufferable.

Cheers,
Peg

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I feel weird about all this.

I don't think I'm envious like that, or not for more than an instant anyway, mainly, I think, because I don't feel as if I'm competing and I don't feel as if things are finite.

I can feel resentful of people/work I don't like getting lots of attention, but as I felt exactly the same about this before I was published, I don't think it's envy exactly, and it doesn't go beyond rolling my eyes and thinking "sheesh".

I can feel cross at feeling co-opted and that sort of thing, but what I mostly feel when I hear of other people's achievements is wistful -- I feel exactly the same at Truepenny's 2500 words during the con as at Laurel Winter's grant, wow, it's nice for them, and it would be nice to be able to do that, but it isn't possible. I don't really want it to be. I don't let the nests in my hair and the birds fly right on past.

I could get really bitter if I got envious. I could be envious of your Eowyn Challenge, gosh, you can walk... but I had a good friend, now dead, whose attitude towards being crippled totally cured me of that kind of thing, I despise myself if I give way to it for a second. (I do have a problem with people dancing, which I try to avoid by not being around people dancing.) I think this may spill over into not really giving way to being envious of other things as well.

Also I have a dread of being forced into feeling competitive and resenting people. I don't want that at all. And I try not to get the scales of importance of things mixed up -- sometimes more successfully than others.

Like I said, the whole thing is weird for me.

Writing friends

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I envy you, Peg, for having kijjohnson to go through all this with you . . .

We started writing at practically the same time, and we do consider each other peers, but she sold her first book long before I did, by a couple of years, I think. Then she took a much longer time to write that book that I took to write my first. We've sort of hop-scotched like that through our careers. As I said, what has helped us over the years is to talk about these feelings honestly, but to always remember that we're each other's number one fans. It helped to hear from her, when she sold her first, "And I'm sure you'll sell yours, too." That made it sweeter when I sold my first, because I could rejoice, and she could take pleasure in my success and say, "See? I told you so. You're a genius!"

I hope that this will turn out to be true of you and mroctober. There have been two writing groups in Minneapolis that have worked like this, too: they have both really concentrated on becoming professionals together, bootstrapping each other up throughout their careers. One was the famous Scribblies group (Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Steve Brust, pameladean, Nate Bucklin, Kara Dalkey, Pat Wrede). There's a newer group that's doing the same thing, the Wyrdsmiths. Their members include Naomi Kritzer, Lyda Morehouse, Doug Hulick, William Henry, Rosalind Nelson, Harry LeBlanc and Kelly David McCullough. They developed their professional chops critiquing each other's works, and they network, network, network and help each other all they can. Very fruitful professional--and friendly--relationships. Those are the best kind.

I think I've probably pointed you to this article by Lyda on writing groups before.

Cheers,
Peg

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

As a uni student who's losing her way? I'm jealous of high school students. Yes, your lives are tough, I know; I was there. But.

I wish I was still at school, when worrying about a job/where I'm going to be in a year's time/money is so less pressing.

Being a part-time uni student and a part-time worker doesn't do wonders for the time when trying to write, either.

Re:

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know that's hard too. I think trying write in school is just difficult becuse you're spending so much time doing something that you don't get paid for, so you have to go do stuff to earn money and that eats up all your time. At least I'll have my own computer in college, it's a step in the right direction.

Re: Writing friends

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

It is encouraging to hear you say that you were a couple of years apart in terms of first sales. I am going to tell him this story the next time he gets really down. Thanks for that.

I would love to start (or join, but am thinking starting might be the only way) a NJ/NY writers group like the legendary Scribblies or the Wyrdsmiths. Hopefully, I can rope Cassie and Steve into it. I don't think I'd seen that article before but it was quite helpful. Hm...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I'm poking through your archives, so this is a rather late-to-the-game comment, but hey, what the heck. :)

I have a friend, shadowhwk, with whom I have a writing relationship similar to yours and kijjohnson's: neck and neck. I recently sold my first novel, which has spawned some of that career envy mentioned in your post. I tend, due to my personality, to be more in papersky's court, and to have the "the cup is half full" attitude. I'm intensely competitive, but this particular arena isn't one that I feel like I'm really *competing* in.

Possibly I would feel differently if she'd been the one who sold. :) I don't *think* so, and I know entirely well that she's delighted for me, even though the envy is there. As it is, I'm the one saying, "You'll sell soon," and I mean it with all my heart and I'll be beside myself with excitement when she does. It's a kind of strange balance.

As for the first book that was "pretty good", this is a perfect excuse to tell you that EMERALD HOUSE RISING is one of the two books I've ever read literally twice in a row in my life. It was a second and third read, too, when I did that; I'd picked it up to re-read because I loved it, and when I got done I looked at my shelves, thought, "Man, there isn't anything here I'd rather read than EMERALD HOUSE RISING again," and so I did. :) I've read it a couple more times since, and I keep hoping there'll be another book (or several) about Jena. :) (She said encouragingly!)

(The other book I read twice in a row was Ellen Raskin's THE WESTING GAME.)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your compliment on Emerald House Rising! My original concept was that I would do a series, each one centered on a different one of the ruling Houses. I did start to write a prequel to it, with a different set of characters, but it petered out, and I don't know whether I will ever get back to that world. Somehow, I just seemed to have moved on. Perhaps some day. . .

Congratulations on Urban Shaman! Hope you have many more sales to celebrate in the future.

Cheers,
Peg

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I sort of figured from the title that Emerald House Rising was the first of a series about the different houses. When I got done reading it the first time, I said, "Augh, where's the next one!" to my husband, who said, "You think there'll be more?" I thought it was quite clear that there would be more! But, well. Perhaps someday you'll go back to that world! If not, at least I've gotten a lot of happy mileage out of EHR. :)

Thank you very much! *beam*

-Catie