When You’re Jealous of Other Writers: 5 Things That Help
It’s a common feeling: you’re reeling over the lack of improvement in your manuscript, spent months in revisions, went through scores of lukewarm beta feedback, and someone you know—someone with a sparkling draft—gets an agent offer. Gets an editor and a publishing deal. Someone you know is glowing on social media and is supporting their dreams with self-publishing.
And you sit there and wonder… what the hell is wrong with your work? What the hell is wrong with you?
The truth is: nothing.
Jealousy is a real ass-kicker. It can electrify some unpleasant frames of mind, like perfectionism, or imposter’s syndrome. It can even sludge us with writer’s block if we let it get too far—you know, when we get stuck in our heads that we can’t do enough, so we become unable to put words on the page, terrified that it can’t stand on its own two legs.
All because we’re comparing ourselves to other people. All because someone else is activating a quiet fear or insecurity that we don’t realize is loud.
It seems like such a simple emotion but understanding where it comes from and how to tackle it is comparable to climbing a mountain while out of breath. It takes a lot of practice to get it out of our heads. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t experience it. But there are some things that have really helped me get around it, and hopefully they’ll help you out, too.
So… what helps?
Use the jealousy as material and keep moving forward. Many times when we’re feeling jealousy, it’s because others are accomplishing things that we wish we could achieve. It could be any number of reasons—a prominent publication. A decently paid advance. Better prose. Better dialogue. Better storytelling. More readers. More friends. But you know what you can do in the midst of all that? Keep working. Writing is hard, and the people you are jealous of worked for their success. More importantly, you can achieve the same. Get inspired by the people who make you jealous. Improve your prose. Improve your dialogue. Make new friends. Study the craft. You’ll make some strides.
Look at your own page. If jealousy hinders your ability to write, take a break. Take a break from reading. Take a break from social media, and focus on your own work for a while. Victoria Schwab said it marvelously: “Don’t compare your rehearsal to someone else’s stage performance.” You need to remember: You are not in competition with other writers. Once you’re able to settle these feelings down, choose to collaborate with other writers instead. Their successes do not hurt you. Their accomplishments, publications, their gorgeous writing are not threats to you. In other words, whether they succeed or not actually has nothing to do with your own success or failure. TRUST the process of writing. It’s always ugly at first but it’s part of the bigger picture.
Transform your jealousy into admiration. It doesn’t take much. Reach out more often. Tell a friend what they’re good at. Compliment your fellow writer. People will start returning the favor. Change your environment so that your environment will eventually be reflected back at you.
Community is so damn important. You need to surround yourself with people who support you, who will remind you of your strengths when someone else makes you feel unworthy. After all, when you are jealous of someone, it’s more of a reflection of who you think you are. They are activating a part of you that is either afraid of change, afraid of success, afraid of failure, afraid of rejection—OR, they are activating a part of you that is stuffed up, a part of you that hasn’t had the chance to express what it so clearly needs. And you know what? If you could make connections with the person you are jealous of and they can support you in return, that’s a powerful bond. They are human, too, and they’ll show you there’s nothing for you to feel small about. And when they support you, you can support them back. It becomes a win-win situation. Jealousy dwindles under such awesomeness.
Cut yourself some slack. Jealousy is a natural emotion. It’s not an easy emotion to admit to, but you were raised this way! Our culture prioritizes competitiveness. It feeds us images of money and fame as measurements of success. Then it shames you for feeling jealous when you don’t have these things, because it labels you as a person not up for the job. You get labeled as a bitter person. You may even be labeled as a bad friend. Too often we’re told that we cannot feel jealousy, so we hide it. Some good intentions are behind that advice. After all, jealousy is capable of hurting your professional and personal relationships if you let it get in the middle. But these feelings are normal and there’s no need to be shamed for it—you can process it in time, in your own pace.
You’ll see that a lot of these suggestions are calls for action. You have to rewire your focus. You have to be vigilant about it, too. Keep your focus somewhere else other than what you perceive your lack to be. When you begin to feel the jealousy, realign it. It takes practice, but I promise it’s worth the constant repetition.
I promise. Remember: there is nothing wrong with you or your writing other than the work it needs. It’s just not your time yet.
Take care of yourself. Let me know in the comments if you wish for me to expand on any of these points or if there are still any unanswered questions! As always, you can check out my video on the topic below: