I
pondered what to say for this post. Now I'm as human as the next person, but I
really don't have pangs of professional (or any other) type of jealousy. I
mean, come on, who doesn't envy the lucky guy or gal who happened to stop at a
liquor store on the way home one night and ends up with the winning lotto
ticket? And is now worth millions? OK, I can get green over that for about a
nanosecond and then tear up my loser ticket and move on. It was fun daydream
and someone has to win. More jackpots next week!
So I reverted to my old high school
term paper techniques and looked up the meaning of "jealousy."
According to Wikipedia: Jealousy is an emotion, and the word
typically refers to the thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, concern, and
anxiety over an anticipated loss of status or something of great personal
value, particularly in reference to a human connection.
So here’s the thing – I write what I write. No one else
writes my exact novels and I don’t write exactly what anyone else does. I’m on
my own journey with my books (and the rest of my life). If someone else wins an
award or becomes a Best Seller or gets a movie deal, that’s their journey and accomplishment and has
nothing to do with me. I had no influence over it, no one asked me to be
involved, they didn’t pick his or her book instead of mine (although I’m always
happy to talk movie or TV rights – Hollywood, feel free to e mail me LOL!). Romance readers are voracious
about wanting new books and more books – it’s not like they’ll buy Author X’s
book and that means they’ll never buy one of mine too.
I don’t suffer “insecurity, fear, concern and anxiety” over
these things. Did I do my best effort? Am I satisfied with what I produced?
Were there positive lessons to be learned from someone else’s success or honor
or award?
Would I love to have the success equivalent to J. K. Rowling for example? Heck yes! But only if I get there with writing my own books
and because readers loved them.
In the scifi romance world, we like to think someone's book will be a big breakout some day, like Fifty Shades was for its genre. The book and the time and the zeitgeist and the stars will all be in alignment and ZINGO. Would I like to be THAT author? Oh YES. Will I feel some professional jealousy if it isn't me? Oh YES. Will I wallow in it and be afraid and anxious and all that other negative stuff? NO. Because if SFR breaks out big as a genre, I have my books right there, ready to be read by the hungry new readers of SFR. The world - the galaxy - is big enough for all of us who can write a good book. Which my readers tell me, I do and I love my readers so there you have it.
I don’t know what else to say so here’s some fun news – the cover
for Star Cruise: Outbreak was
selected by professional booksellers as Third Place Finalist in the Judge a
Book By Its Cover contest (JABBIC) this week. My amazing cover artist is Fiona
Jayde and I’m so happy to collaborate with her.
