Envy is a natural human reaction, so of course, it’s natural in the writing life. To suggest people just “not be jealous” is like saying to a depressed person, “Why don’t you just cheer up?” You see someone get the deals you’d love, the awards you want to win, the opportunities you strive for and you think, “Why them? Why not me?” This is normal. You can’t control how you feel about something and envy is an entirely normal feeling.

You can, however, control how you react to that feeling. You choose what to do with it.

If your first course of action is to bitch and moan publicly, to deride the person you’re envying, deride the publisher, editor, award system or whatever else is involved, well, that’s a really bad choice. For one, it’s bitter, and bitterness will eat you up inside. But it’s also career suicide. If you ever want to see the kind of opportunities you’re envying, being a whiner now, being bitter and unpleasant, is a pretty sure way to ensure you never will.

People notice, editors and publishers notice. They remember. They don’t want to work with people who are difficult or unpleasant. And folks who would publicly badmouth their colleagues and their industry out of jealousy are difficult and unpleasant people. We need to lift each other up, not put each other down.

Of course you can feel aggrieved about something. Remember, feeling envy is entirely natural. You might even be right if you think something isn’t entirely fair or open. But unless there’s obvious and unequivocal corruption going on, keep that shit to yourself. People are free to run their careers and their businesses however they like. Your bitching about it will only make you look bad, not them. (This isn’t to say you can’t discuss things or raise concerns. Healthy discourse is just that: healthy. But if you’re feeling personally aggrieved and about to kick off with that, check yourself.)

If you want to have a rant about something—and who doesn’t, from time to time?—save that shit for your offline friends group, your spouse, your private group WhatsApp. If you don’t have a group of some kind where you can engage in a good moan about stuff or question stuff without doing it publicly like a bunch of dicks, then start one. This is the healthy and professional way to deal with feelings of envy or grievance in the first instance.

Now, back to the bitterness thing. This is important, because it’s about your mental health. This business is fucked, fam. No lie, this business hollows you out. It’s a series of seemingly endless rejections and dead ends and frustrations with the occasional success that keeps you going. You’re only still in it because you’re as bloody-minded as the rest of us and determined to keep going, no matter what. That’s how you succeed anyway.

We control literally no part of this entire industry except one thing: the writing.

That’s us. That’s ours. We can do that however we want. It’s the expression of ourselves and it’s no one else’s to fuck with. That all comes later when you take the writing into the publishing arena. And what a brutal colosseum that is.

So we come back around to what we do with those entirely normal feelings of jealousy. They’re going to happen. But if you think you’re somehow special, somehow missing out unfairly, step back. Go sit in the corner and have a quiet word with yourself. That kind of thinking will eat you up.

Something to remember is that people share their wins, but rarely publicise their failures. For every success you see them celebrating, I guarantee you they’ve suffered through numerous fails to get there. If someone seems to be celebrating a lot of wins, they’re surely also nursing a lot of wounds from along the way.

So every time you see someone achieve something you strive for, celebrate it. You can still wish it happened to you, but instead of stewing on it and hating them, say to yourself, “It happened to them, so it could happen to me too!”

Remind yourself that if those opportunities exist, they exist for everyone.

All you control is the writing, so keep doing that. Every time you feel like you missed out on something, write. The more you write, the better you get and the more stuff you have out there. Then it’s more likely opportunities are going to come your way. Then you’ll be ready to grab those opportunities when they do.

The one thing that is always true is that you will only succeed if you write. So do the fucking work. Do the one thing you can control.

The excellent Tim Waggoner wrote:

“Envy is the writer’s disease… Admire other writers’ work, learn from it, learn from their accomplishments and their setbacks, but never compare yourself to them… You can’t have anyone else’s career. You can only have yours.”

This is powerful and positive advice.

Christopher Golden recently talked a bit on this subject and he shared a fantastic quote from the late, great Rick Huatala: “I wish it happened to me, but if it can’t happen to me, I hope it happens to you.”

That’s good and healthy thinking. Rick knew good stuff happening to anyone is good for everyone. A rising tide lifts all boats. If there are opportunities out there, that’s great. Celebrate them, strive for them, compare yourself to no one, but be inspired, be motivated by everyone.

And always, always, do the fucking work.

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