Battling Author Envy

This week at the SFF Seven we're talking about ENVY. We're asking if things have ever gotten weird between you and another author after publishing?

Yeah, they have. And it's awful and heartbreaking.

You know what else is awful and heartbreaking? Feeling that envy for other authors who seem to be more successful than we are. None of us wants to be that person, and yet none of us is immune from those green crawly fingers of professional jealousy.

So, what happened to me? It's happened a few times, with different people. The most startling cases were authors who were published before I was. I admired their books. They became friends. They were lovely and generous and helpful to me. A couple of the people I'm thinking of were ones I counted as very close friends. Women I loved. 

In every case, after I did get published and enjoyed some moderate success, they ended up just... not being my friends anymore. They essentially ghosted me on social media. One emailed me after we roomed at a convention, told me she wasn't going the next year and so I should find another roommate - then she did go, didn't tell me, and roomed with someone else. 

Did it hurt? Oh, yes, it really hurt. It still hurts to write this.

Did I wonder what I'd done to lose those friendships? Obsessively. I still think about it sometimes.

Do I know it was envy? No. It could be I said or did something. Sometimes we never know why someone stops loving us. Even if we can figure it out, there's no changing the past. 

The point of all this is that I can't control those relationships. They didn't want to be my friends anymore and I couldn't change that. I've found only one way to combat that ongoing pain, and that is to control what I can: changing myself.

I do my very best to be a good friend to others. I try to help and support other authors. I counter professional jealousy in myself any time it pricks me with its poisonous thorns. 

The best way to counter that? Flow out the opposite energy!

Read a book that you don't think is as good as yours but seems to have done better? Find something to love about it!

See an author with more followers than you have? Follow them too!

Someone is nominated for an award that you aren't? Celebrate it!

Another author is making way more money than you are? Take some of theirs!

Oh, wait...

Okay, so, it's not a perfect method. But it really does work. If you feel the pinch of professional jealousy, the most effective way to combat it is to be the opposite of that. You don't have to feel it, just act accordingly. Trust me - the feeling will follow. 

And know you're not alone. 

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Dark Wizard comes out Thursday!!

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Navigating Professional Jealousy

When you hear about the new bar that doesn't do wimpy little dart boards - they have axe throwing lanes - you don't just go wandering around the city hoping to stumble across the bar. You get directions.

When you're engaged in a profession that matters to you and jealousy sweeps you, you're being given directions. You can ignore them and wallow in the deep unfairness of life, the universe, and everything, or you can collect the directions and alter your course.

I have this theory that jealousy gets a bad rap. You know the lists. Emotions get labeled positive and negative. We all know anger, jealousy, fear, blah, blah, Dark Side, right? Bull, says I. Nothing is negative until you do something that makes it so. I've climbed on this soapbox before, so I'll spare you the sermon. Instead, story:

I was working at a large Seattle-area software company. I made more money than I'd ever dreamed I could make. Sure, there were pagers that went off at 2AM and there were long nights spent trying to work out why some piece of code had gone sideways, but I had a boss I gladly worked hard for. If I had any inkling that something wasn't quite right, I choked it down. This was what success meant, right? Stable work, good people, and a great paycheck? Then the amazing boss was gone. In the space of a day, the landscape shifted. A dysfunctional mad man took his place. I swear this is not political allegory. This really happened. The new guy so messed up the team that the entire technical staff walked into the managing director's office one day to quit en masse. We didn't end up quitting - the managing director removed that boss. The thing about it was that the work drama made stark how miserable I was. And had been for longer than I'd allowed myself to admit. This was not how I wanted to spend my life. Didn't know what I did want - but I knew what I didn't.

So I undertook a process of figuring out where I belonged. The advice? Look to your jealousy. Every pang of envy, every twist of jealousy, every mental wail of 'why not me?' was to be noted down over the space of a month. More if need be. Then the data were compiled and mined for a common thread. It took weeks of looking at the data over and over and wondering why I couldn't work out what it had to say - but you can likely guess. The thread was there, waiting for me to pick it up: Story telling. Every single item on my list was, at its core, about telling stories. So here I am, driven to writing by the sign posts of jealousy turned to a purpose.

Occasionally, I have days where I'm envious of that paycheck I left behind. And there are days I see someone else get the accolade I imagine I want. But there's no stewing in that. No wallowing in the bitter dregs of wishing I had what someone else has earned. When the envy grabs you by the ribs and squeezes, it's time to look the monster dead in the eye and see what it has to tell you. No. Not the 'you're not good enough, smart enough, brave enough, whatever enough.' Those are lies. Stare it in the eye and find out exactly what it signifies. Are you really envious of the attention author A is receiving? Or are you awed by this person's productivity? (There are no wrong answers - there's only the right for you answer.) Once you know, you can begin shaping your work so it comes into line with what you want. Productivity, attention, a fancy car, whatever the object of your envy.

It's work. Both to pay strict attention to the signposts and to then steer by them. But when jealousy bites hard and deep, it's because it has a message for you. Do you listen?

5 Things Akin to Professional Jealousy

Yay me! I get to write about Jealousy on Valentine's Day! On this day of chocolates, wine, and optional companionship, here are...

5 Things Akin to Professional Jealousy:

1. Sharting. You can't help but feel it. Best for everyone if you deal with it in private.

2. Using the ice bath in the men's locker room. You come out looking smaller.

3. Swimming afoul of an alligator.  You'll either be motivated or consumed.

4. Vaping. Nobody is impressed and you look like a tool.

5. The flu. Keep your snot to yourself.  Eventually, you'll get over it.

On Professional Jealousy - and Three Ways to Shut It Down

Last weekend I got to visit my lovely writer friend Grace Draven - that's me enjoying the gorgeous trees in Texas hill country - and this weekend my fantastic writer friend Anne Calhoun came to visit me. As a result, I've had about ten days worth of intense writer conversation and am wrung out.

I'm also late with this post because of it. Last week I didn't do one at all, though that was largely because the topic was Flash Fiction and I just don't much like doing those. Flash fiction can be an interesting form, but my fiction-writing energy goes into my current project and I find working on anything other than that feels tangential at best and counter-productive at worst.

I am, however, blessed by having these friends to talk writing with and my well has been refilled to brimming.

And this week's topic is about writing relationships: A Cringeworthy Moment of Professional Jealousy & How You Dealt With It.

One aspect of having friends who are also writers, especially those who write in the same genre, is that competition can rear its inevitable head. It's an unfortunate aspect of the business. Even if we are not competitive by nature, the industry thrusts us into competition with each other. Who wins the award? Who made that Top Ten list? Who got a more lucrative publishing contract? And then there are the "tournaments" that well-meaning readers and bloggers construct to celebrate their favorite books. In many of these, authors are encouraged to recruit votes to get their book to "win" and even to trash-talk "rival" authors and books.

It can all be very difficult. We can intellectually understand that the business is variable, book love is subjective, and all of the fandom is good and goes toward exposure for everyone.

But the truth is that professional jealousy can be a huge problem.

It can kill friendships.

It's happened to me. It's happened to writers I know.

No matter how valiantly we may try to fend off the demons of jealousy, they are insidious and pervasive. Frankly, I would never give the advice not to be jealous or competitive. That's like advising people not to get angry at bad drivers in heavy traffic. Sometimes we can be Zen. Sometimes we lose our shit.

That's being human. And we wouldn't be human if we didn't occasionally note that the other monkey got a great big handful of berries and we didn't.

FOR NO GOOD REASON.

So what would be my cringeworthy moment of professional jealousy? There are so many to choose from. There was the time my crit partner who was querying at the same time as I was got a three-book deal for $30K and I didn't sell my book for two more years and then for no advance. Or when an agent who passed on my book picked someone else's and got her a six-figure deal.

Or every time a Top Ten List features a book in my genre that isn't mine.

Or every time someone recommends another author's book instead of mine.

I mean, I tell you people - I could easily spend every day in the throes of professional jealousy. There are so many opportunities to do so. There are plenty of authors who succumb to this.

And I'd be lying if I didn't admit to you that I sometimes feel it. I also sometimes suggest that other drivers do anatomically impossible actions with the brains they clearly don't have.

The key is not to pretend we don't feel it, but instead to deal productively with that energy.

1. Channel

Jealousy - or covetousness - is wanting what someone else has. Do I want that award, that contract, that spot on the Top Ten List? That's good energy that drives me to improve. I remind myself to channel it into my work to make it better. It's good to want things. It's better to work hard for them.

2. Consider the Big Picture

It's easy to covet that one thing someone else got, but I always ask myself if I'd trade places with them. A lot of times I might want that contract, but I wouldn't want their asshole of a spouse or chronically ill parent. Everyone struggles with their own pain - I make myself consider what that person's burden is, and if I'd take that along with their blessings.

3. Eyes on Your Own Work

This is one of my personal mottoes. Why am I even looking at a list I'm not on, at contract numbers for a sale that isn't mine? I learned it in school and I learn it again every day. I don't need to see how the kids next to me are doing. I have to keep my eyes on my OWN work.

Heavens know, I've got plenty to keep me occupied!

4. Celebrate Others

I'm adding this one after some online conversations, because it's been pointed out to me that I do this, too. Yes - I make a deliberate effort to celebrate the successes of others. By taking that energy and channeling it into joy, I refuse to let jealousy take hold. It becomes easier and easier to feel like when someone else - particularly a friend I love and who loves me in return - triumphs, it's my happiness, too. I'm not sure it's fair to expect anyone to do this automatically, but it's a skill in generosity of spirit that can be deliberately cultivated. Practice, practice, practice!