What to do With Envy?

I truly thought I was special. _{(if you are actually special and don’t feel envy, this post isn’t for you. go on and enjoy your life).}

Initially, I thought that, unlike every single debut, I’d come out of this year unscathed. I’d hold my head high. I’d smile. I’d be humble and grateful, and I would absolutely, under no circumstances, lose my marbles.

Spoiler alert: It took me a day of being around other debuts to lose my marbles.

Envy is also a bitch. Mostly, because the best you can do is address the feeling after it’s come up. You can talk yourself down from the ledge. You can change your perspective. You can do everything right, but in the moment, you are going to feel that stab of envy and it’s going to suck. It’s like food poisoning. Any way you cut it, the food needs to leave your body one way or another, and neither feels great.

In publishing, there are so many things to be envious of. There are bigger advances! There are gorgeous covers! Sprayed edges! Book tours! Scented freakin’ candles! Plushies! You name it and someone’s got it. And sometimes we’re envious of things that are much bigger than a fancy illustrator. We’re (rightfully) envious of our peers that don’t have disabilities, come from generational wealth, have spouses with lucrative careers, etc… I’d never advise someone to subdue their envy in these cases. Publishing is far from fair - it never has been, and I anticipate it never will be. We can work to improve the situation, but that takes time.

So, aside from becoming so green with envy you turn into the Hulk and blow up publicly, completely torching whatever little writing career you have, what can you do?

1. Get off social media: No, seriously. Social media sucks because a) it steals our attention from things far more important and b) because people tend to post only the very best things that are happening to them. Scroll through anyone’s profile and you will only spot wins. Social media creates the illusion that you are the only one struggling and that everyone else’s life is punctuated by rainbows and unicorns. Finally, c) PEOPLE LIE (gasp). This might be surprising, but people lie on social media all the time. People overinflate their accomplishments, yes, but people also outright LIE about the stuff they’re getting, so you might be getting envious over fictional stuff. If you can’t get off social media, at least limit your use of it. Seriously, your brain will thank you.
   

2. Get a notebook and write it down: Everyone who’s anyone in publishing will tell you that you should never take your complaints/envy to social media, but instead confide in a close group of friends. However, sometimes our friends are not in publishing or it’s them we are envious of. Enter THE JOURNAL^TM . A paper and pen approach is great because a) it can be secret and b) paper can be destroyed and there’s something very therapeutic about that. Take all your thoughts, write them down, rip out the page, and then (safely) burn it. Catharsis might not fix your problems, but it sure feels right. Having a physical space for those particular thoughts to live can also create the necessary distance between you and them.

3. Trade lives. So, until this point, my ideas have been to curb the envy. This one is to make it go away (at least for a little bit). I like to do this thought exercise where I trade lives with someone I envy. “Isn’t that great though?”, you will ask. “Isn’t that exactly what you wish for?” Well, no. See, when I trade lives with this person, I trade everything. This includes no longer living with my dogs, having a different spouse or no spouse, living in a different location, in a different body, and writing in a different genre. There is nothing wrong with those things, but they aren’t mine. I start doing a little math in my head. Would I be willing to give up my dogs for publishing success? (no!) Would I be willing to give up my spouse? (no!) My ten thousand tropical plants? (maybe?) I always arrive at the conclusion that any sort of publishing success isn’t actually worth trading my life for another, and that living that life is exactly what I would have to do to have that exact success. What I really want is my own success, where I get to keep all of my stuff (dogs, spouse, plants, etc.) and still publish a lot in the genre that I love.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that there are a million things to be envious of in publishing. Envy is normal. _{If you don’t experience envy, why are you still here?}

Importantly, envy can be useful in identifying what we want from our writing careers, but on our own terms. That last bit is paramount. We want our success to be our own and to fit into the lives we are already leading. We intrinsically know what our non-negotiables and boundaries are. Fulfilling all this is a tall ask, one that takes time and effort. So, stay envious, stay hungry, but stay patient and buckle down.

_{*this, of course, doesn’t address any of the structural barriers that exist in publishing, but that’s a whole different conversation.}

Writing News

The Iron Garden Sutra now has a cover! I’m also very excited to share a snippet of the first chapter with all of you. Everyone, meet Iris. He gets progressively more passive-aggressive as the novel goes on.

Head over to Reactor to read!

In other news, my Nebula trophy arrived! It’s still surreal that there’s my name on a trophy, but there it is!

As for actual writing, I’ve been doing very little. I have been, however, editing so much I’ve worn through my keyboard protector. I’m on week three, going into novel #3 as we speak and maybe, somehow, once I am past this one, I’ll be able to focus on my grant novel that is due October, and is currently sitting at checks notes 40k words.

If anyone from CCA is reading this, I’m sorry, and I’m trying my best. You’ll get your coming-of-age climate fiction even if my fingers start bleeding.

….and that’s it! Phew!

Thanks for sticking around till the end!

Cheers!