Dealing With Jealousy, Envy, and Ugly Emotions

(image courtesy of Mona El Falaky via pixabay.com)

This is something we don’t like to talk about, or admit, even to ourselves. Most of us have been brought up to compete, especially in anything that has a marketplace. Which means we’ve been trained to see others’ successes as taking away from us. That’s a difficult pattern to break, but it’s important to do so. Otherwise, even if we meet our own standards for success, we will be miserable.

The business reality, especially in traditional publication, is that there are a limited number of slots for publication in each season or issue, and yes, there’s competition for the slots. That’s as true of grant proposals, residencies, and everything else. Landing those slots has a lot to do with subjectivity on the parts of those making decisions, along with timing and the organization’s broader business needs at any given moment. It also has to do with craft; a writer who understands and uses craft is more likely to land a slot than someone who turns in an incoherent mess, even if there’s talent there. But so much of the process is subjective rather than objective.

However, the bigger reality is that humans have an insatiable need for stories, and it’s a case of timing. It’s finding the right match at the right moment.

I look at it like dating for my manuscripts. Chances are, you won’t find your soul mate the first time out. You need to date around a bit. And some relationships will run their course. Agents and publishers change focus; writers grow in different directions than their agents. It doesn’t have to be nasty drama. Sometimes, it’s time for the parties to move on.

But it’s difficult, when you’ve worked your guts out and poured your heart into a piece, to get rejected and see something you don’t like succeed. Sometimes, it’s even difficult to see something you like succeed.

Because we are humans, and we get to be more than one thing, just like our most engaging characters.

These emotions also drain energy that’s better pointed toward creating work.

I do not advocate the point of view some have when they read or see something brilliant and it depresses them because they “can never be that good.” Are you still alive? Yeah? Pulse going, heart beating? Then you haven’t fulfilled your potential yet. You DON’T KNOW how good you can be someday, providing you keep showing up and doing the work. Use the brilliance you just experienced to get you excited about getting back to your own creative work. Don’t use it as an excuse to step away. Wonderful work is a beacon of light in the darkness, not something holding you back, unless you WANT it to. Yes, you feel the emotion. Now use it to get somewhere better. Or see if it’s an indication that you’re not working in the arena that really speaks to your heart. There are so many people who like the idea of having written, but not the actual writing. So why do it? Find something that makes you feel wonderful and alive as you’re creating.

That’s the first big step in dealing with these emotions. Admit you have them. Humans are filled with messy emotions. That’s why we’re attracted to stories with messy emotions. We want to see how others deal or don’t deal with them. When we create characters with messy emotions, we want to explore how they navigate them. We share them with the world, and someone out there suddenly realizes they’re not alone, and they have hope. Or they experience a different point of view through a character, and now understand it in a way they didn’t before.

Does this person’s success actually have anything to do with you? Most of the time, it doesn’t, especially when it’s someone you don’t actually know or with whom you don’t interact. Unless you share the same agent or submitted to the same publication, or the same residency, it really has nothing to do with YOU. You feel crappy anyway; you acknowledge it, and move on. You don’t have the whole story; you have the bit they chose to share. And remember: a victory for one of us helps all of us. The marketplace wants us in competition to keep our prices (wages)  down.

If it’s someone you actively dislike or whose work you can’t stand, use it as fuel to create something new. I always joke that, as a mystery writer, when someone really pisses me off, I kill “them” in a story. The provocateur might be the original inspiration, but when I do my job as a writer, the character evolves away from the original inspiration and becomes an individual in their own right. I’ve written some of my best received and most enduring work from places of pain and/or anger.

However, I managed to pull myself out of the rabbit hole of creating pain and anger in order to create. Sadly, one of my uncles, who was a highly regarded artist in Europe, could only create out of angst, and thereby set up painful situations to provoke his creativity. I don’t find that a healthy way to create.

What about when a friend, partner, or trusted colleague lands an assignment, a show, a publication slot, wins a content, gains a residency or a grant, and you are rejected? Again, admit to yourself what you’re feeling. Don’t berate yourself as a “terrible person” for feeling what you feel. You feel it. Admit it to yourself. Then CHOOSE not to take it out on your friend. We feel what we feel; we choose our actions. Celebrate them and with them. If a friend of mine and I submit to the same publication, contest, residency, and they get it and I don’t? Yes, I’m sad for me. But I’d also rather my friend got the slot than some stranger, because it’s my friend and I want them to succeed. Their success does not diminish my work. If anything, it supports it, because chances are I’ve read drafts as it developed, and watched its journey as it evolves to something that touches and moves others. That’s wonderful.

Romantic partnerships can be trickier, especially if the career trajectories of each person are different. It’s hard not to compete with each other, especially if you’re in the same discipline. I was once engaged to a fellow writer who spent most of his time belittling my work and telling me that there was “room for only one star in the family” and that was him. Needless to say, we didn’t last long as a couple (longer than we should have, but learn from mistakes). He went on to relationships where he could be the center of attention. I went on to relationships that fit my view of what “partnership” meant (although it took longer than it should have to get his negative voice out of my head).

We’re taught to ignore, suppress, deny, or medicate any uncomfortable emotion. (I’m not talking about clinical depression, mental illness, et al).  As artists, denying these parts of us hurts our ability to create a wide range of work that speaks to others’ emotions and lets them know they are not alone. As artists, we need to face our emotions head on, even when they’re uncomfortable, explore them in healthy ways, plumb them, and then use them to create something powerful.

How do you deal with unpleasant emotions? How do you face them down and turn them into something else? Drop your thoughts in the comments.