Throughout the year, and especially over the last few days as the year draws to a close, I’ve been writing about finding a sense of ourselves and our place in the creative world.
Finding this place requires that we resist competing with and comparing ourselves to other creative people and their journeys and successes. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Who wouldn’t want to be as prolific and acclaimed as Joyce Carol Oates? Wouldn’t it have been great if our parents had formed a company for the sole purpose of publishing the first novel we wrote when we were 15 and then sent us on tour to promote it? I might wish I had 100,000 Instagram followers to feed my ego. I don’t write screenplays, but I’d be a lovely Oscar winner.
Comparing and contrasting is one of my toxic traits. Some writers have gifts of talent, time, and support I can only envy from a distance. And I don’t mean polite, quiet envy, but blood-curdling, apple-poisoning, ride the dragon into King’s Landing-level jealousy that may come off a tad unhinged if I spoke of it aloud.
At the same time, I regret to admit I look down on a lot of writers who put out work I consider shoddy. Looking at the free e-books available for download from Amazon is almost enough to make me quit writing out of sheer shame at the association.
But ultimately, we are neither more than nor less than any other writer. We bring forth what we have or we don’t. That’s it. No matter who I admire or disdain, that writer cannot write what I write, because that writer is not me. While our circumstances may be different and our challenges unequal, at heart every writer faces the same choice: to bring forth what is inside you or not. If what’s inside you is Reverse-Harem Hentai Alien Polycule Book XIV, well, ok.
In the end, publishing doesn’t matter. Sales don’t matter. Readers and critics don’t matter. The people who want to bully us away from certain stories or shame us for not writing to their desires don’t matter.
Joy matters. Having fun matters. Your journey through whatever we call this mess matters. Each of us is making our way from A to Z, and if along the way, you let out what’s inside you, that’s all you need. We’re all in the same river and we should enjoy being part of it.