Aspirations

Every once in a while, you will read something that absolutely blows your socks off. If you're lucky, reading other people's writing inspires you and gives you a flood of new ideas, but more often than not, it just leaves you feeling like a horse's ass.

Sometimes, they are in your genre, and reading their work makes you think, "damn, they just took the craft I spent years developing to the best of my ability and made it 100 times better. Why on earth would anyone bother reading anything I write when this great writer is out there publishing new material?"

Sometimes, they are in a completely different genre, and reading their work makes you think, "oh God, now I have to abandon my humorous romantic comedy and write something dramatic and angsty if I ever want to have even the slightest chance of being as good as this person..." (These are the thoughts I'm having right now).

The sad truth is, there is always going to be someone who writes better than you. There, I said it. No matter how many years you spend writing, now matter how many books you sell, and no matter how many gallons of blood, sweat, and tears you collect (I don't really like that group except for 'Spinning Wheel'...), there is always going to be someone better.

This isn't just true of writing. This is true of musicians, artists, neurosurgeons, quilters, horseback riders, or anything else you can think of.

On the bright side, there is always going to be someone worse than you, too. Unfortunately, having a hundred people worse than you doesn't make up for that one person that's better. Sometimes it can be fun to have talented, professional colleagues to collaborate with, but once in a while, the green monster pops up, and you think, "dammit, why couldn't I have written that!"

It's frustrating, unhealthy, and ought to be dismissed from your mind (I know, easier said than done). Although I am still searching for a way to circumvent this envy as a musician, I have found one as a writer. Different people are in different moods for different things at different times. Even if someone writes the best crime fiction novel you have ever read, there are going to be people out there who want to read your romantic comedy. Maybe they just had a bad break-up and need something lighthearted. Besides, if only 'the best book in the world' was ever published, what would all the avid readers out there do with their time? There doesn't have to be just one winner.

My chorus teacher used to have a poster on the wall of her classroom that was really cheesy, but kind of inspiring at the same time. "The forest would be very quiet if no birds sang except the best." Bear with me and move the cheesy metaphor over to the writing world for a moment. The shelves of libraries, book stores, homes, and computer hard-drives would be very empty if no authors wrote except the best.

If you think no one could create a masterpiece half as good as the author of the book you just finished, look at the other books on the library shelf. There's going to be at least one other book that tops the one you just read. For every person that's better than you, there's going to be someone better than them, too, so really, we're all in the same boat together.

Somewhere in the world, someone is going to read your work at exactly the right moment and enjoy it immensely. It's always worth it to put your writing out there for that reason alone, but also because, as writers, we have to do it. We need to do it. We have to reach out and touch others (especially our fellow writers). Who knows, you might be the inspiration someone else is looking for (or maybe even the standard of excellence that tortures another writer).

... it's okay for you to feel a little smug about that. Really. Schadenfreude is a normal point on the large spectrum of human emotions.