jealousy, discouragement, and persistence

I recently had a first-time writer tell me about how discouraged he was that another first-time writer’s book was doing so much better than his.

Every writer has that feeling sooner or later – you’ll read a book or even just page through it and think “how the devil is that selling better than mine?!?”

Well, King Solomon had it right 3000 years ago. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance overtake them all. And that goes both ways, too. I guarantee that someone has read one of my books and thought “why is that selling better than mine?!?”

Sometimes they email to tell me that, at length. 🙂

Or if you think of it in terms of athletics, no matter how fast and strong you are, there is always someone faster and stronger. And even if you are the absolute best in your particular sport, sooner or later time and age will take their toll, and then someone younger will become the best. Fortunately, writers tend not to age out so long as their overall health lasts. Dean Koontz is in his 70s and still publishing regularly.

That said, it’s not really a great idea to compare yourself to other writers. Like, you can look at other writers, observe what they are doing, and see how you can learn from them to improve yourself, yes. (Or to see what you can learn from their failures.) That’s only sensible – the wise man learns from the mistakes (and successes) of others. However, actively comparing yourself to other writers, or getting upset when they’re doing better than you, is a really bad idea. That’s simple envy, and envy is a cancer of the mind and heart. The medievals called it one of the seven deadly sins for good reason. Envy has the sly trick of making you unjustifiably angry at other people, while denying you joy in the things that you already have – things that, to come full circle, might inspire envy in other people!

In terms of comparing yourself to other writers, this CS Lewis quote from THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS probably sums it up:

“He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instill either vainglory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy’s side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame.”

That is sound advice for writers, I think. Improve yourself to the best of your ability, and don’t worry about who is better.

Finally, it’s good to remain persistent. To return to the quote from Ecclesiastes above, sometimes the race isn’t to the swift or the battle to the strong because the slow and the weak kept going when the swift and the strong gave up or got cocky and made mistakes. If envy is a cancer of the heart, then persistence is a medicine that can make up for many deficiencies. Talent isn’t worth very much unless you use and develop it, after all. Maybe another writer is better than you, or sells better than you. That might not still be true in another year, or in another five books. Few things are certain in life, but if you allow envy and discouragement to cause you to give up, then it is certain that things will never improve!

-JM