Fighting the Green-Eyed Monster

Bear with me. I promise that this story of teenage angst has plenty to do with both writing and jealousy.

May 30, 2024

Hi friends,

When I was in junior high, I went through a brief period where I was convinced that I was destined to be a famous actress someday and our family’s residence in central Wyoming was standing between me and my unfulfilled dreams. Fueled by dreams of someday having my own starring role on ABC’s TGIF, I believed that my parents were holding me back. One night I finally tearfully unloaded on my unsuspecting mother who had no intention of moving our family to Hollywood but silently determined that she would do what she could to help her daughter feed her desires to be an amateur actress.

During my sophomore year of high school, my mom saw that our local community college was having open community auditions for Fiddler on the Roof. Since my high school did not have a robust theater program, my mom suggested that I audition.

My friend Nancy, a high school freshman, got the coveted role of Chava. I, a high school sophomore, got the role of Bielke, the youngest daughter. According to the character description, Bielke is supposed to be played by an 8-10 year old. I was so jealous of my younger friend for getting the role that I wanted and for getting to flirt with the cute college freshman who would play Fyedka. She got to flirt while I had to act like a little girl.

But Nancy was a flawless Chava. She was perfect for the role. And I still had fun as the youngest member of Tevya’s family, learned a great deal about theater, and continued to feed my acting dreams.

I would eventually exchange my English and drama dual major to English and history, fully embracing my role as an English teacher who infused history into everything I taught. I finally admitted that others were better and more suited for refining their acting skills. While my jealousy over the years was sometimes well placed, it didn’t make me better.

It’s this life lesson that I also have to return to over and over again as a writer.

Some writers really are better than you…right now

In my first couple of years teaching, I struggled with the reality that I didn’t know everything. I had some incredibly talented students who really were better writers and thinkers than me. As a young 20-something, I often felt lost as I tried to be the teacher that those uniquely talented writers needed.

I’ve also felt this way as a writer.

I know that I’m a good writer. Some days I’m even a great writer. But then I read Timothy Egan’s flawless historical narrative or Emily Henry’s hopeful romantic prose or Beth Moore’s beautiful personal storytelling and I feel like a fraud.

We are allowed to proclaim our gifts as writers, and it’s not self-defeating to admit that there are some writers who are just better than us. Admitting this doesn’t doom us to never being as good as our favorite writers. If becoming great is a life goal, we can certainly work to become as good as them. We just have to accept that we aren’t as good as they are yet. Have you ever read a famous writer’s early work and compared it to their later writing? Even the best of the best experience personal growth over a lifetime of writing and publishing. Why should you be any different?

Your only competition is you

It sounds cliche, but it’s true. You’re not in competition with anyone else. You are in competition with yourself.

Every writer has unique challenges: careers, families, health issues, financial obstacles, etc. We cannot know every challenge that a writer faces, nor does it help us to know what challenges they face. What helps us is dealing with our own challenges and finding a routine that works for us. The time we set aside for our writing and the word counts that we commit to are our own. The timelines we set for projects are our own. And the deadlines we set for when we want the projects to be finished are our own.

It is also true that your fellow writers are your peers and you should see them as such. Fellow writers should help us flourish. They shouldn’t suck all of the air out of the room, and most do not. When we find fellow writers who expand our perspectives with their own writing and challenge us to be better, we can more easily achieve our goals. These writers are not your competition; they are your cheerleaders.

Embrace your evolution

As a young teenager, I truly believed that the only way I could achieve professional happiness was if I became a successful actress. I enjoyed acting and was frequently told by friends and family that I was good.

When my family moved to Michigan my junior year, I discovered a new high school theater community where I made good friends and had fun on the stage, but I never got the lead roles.

When I started as a drama major in college, I faced the same challenges. I had to finally admit that my path did not involve making my mark on the stage. I would, however, eventually make my mark as a high school theater director, making my mark behind the scenes through my talented students. I poured my creative energy into students who would go on to do great things.

When I became a mom, the dream shifted and I rediscovered my love for writing, a creative space where I flourished as I never had in the theater.

I learned that my writing didn’t have to take just one path.

When I was really young, I believed that fiction was the only real kind of writing. After all, it was the only thing I was interested in reading. As I got older and spent more time reading nonfiction, I finally acknowledged that my gift is nonfiction writing, telling my story and connecting my experiences to the bigger world around me. I am slowly making a return to fiction, but that experimental writing is proving to be its own challenge, stretching me in new ways.

I’m also learning to embrace the idea that I am on my own timeline. I can lament the fact that Mary Shelley was only 19 when she wrote the very first science fiction novel, or I can find encouragement in the fact that Toni Morrison didn’t get her first book published until she was 39. In fact, there are a lot of writers who didn’t get a real start until they were in middle age. Again, I am not in competition with others; I’m in competition with myself. Is it hard to see much younger writers getting huge audiences and book deals? Yes. Have I wondered why some crowdfunding projects have made thousands of dollars while my own labor of love has struggled to meet its goal? Yes.

But I also know that we’re all walking an unpredictable path full of unforeseen twists and turns, hills and valleys. And so I will keep fighting the green-eyed monster, because jealousy never helped anyone achieve their goals.