I belong to The Well and mostly frequent a really good freelancer group there, where I am middling to low on a totem pole that includes regular writers for Vogue, Wired and Salon but also people who don’t really see their byline in the national pubs very often, if at all. I love being a part of it.
Today, I read an announcement that a fellow byliner just sold her first novel in a “major deal”. I was over the moon for her, honestly. It’s so cool to see a first novel sell, and it gives me such hope.
Here’s the thing–I thought she was one person. A person much higher, again, on that totem pole than me, with a memoir published–but also older, with older kids, more life experience, etcetera. Someone I could sort of aspire to, only without the disease that led to the memoir.
But I googled her, and found that she was in fact WAY up on that totem pole, vastly more glamorous than I will ever be, beautiful, fabulous, a bit of a boldfaced name. No kids.
And I had this huge, huge moment of something for which, once again, there must be an ugly german word. Envy, yes. But it’s just–I can’t get there from here. I can never get there from here. And the little writing boost I’d had–the keep going, it’s possible, keep going–shot straight out the window.
I know, don’t give up hope, yadda. Got it. I can still get SOMEWHERE. I just can’t get THERE. And there, in this house full of sobbing children that I must go and tend and take to a Chinese restaurant right now, looks kind of good.
Don’t punish me for that, fate.
Yadda…
What you’re doing is amazing, and even if you’re not there yet, you will get there someday. I know you. You will. I’m annoying… I know. Sorry.
I’m sorry the evil person on the well got the deal and you didn’t. If I could, I would give you the novel deal, but we all know that I don’t actually have connections in the novel-deal world. Sigh.
Hope the Chinese Food was good.
Fate won’t punish you. And I echo, JK, you’ll get there someday. Just taking a different route is all. Lined with sobbing children, runny noses and poop! It’s not the most glamorous route, but a route nonetheless. (I’m so there with you)
It’s funny, but I think that the extra time on the route as Nino suggests will make you 1) a better person and 2) a better writer.
awww envy is so normal! What would we strive for if there was nothing above us?
I have read your book on books and girl you are going to be GREAT when the time is right for YOU. I told you before I still refer to it! I am waiting for my friends to get pregnant so I can get them that book!
Hang in there, being patient is so hard. I have put a lot of my own dreams on hold to help my husband achieve his and it is hard, but so worth it 🙂
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