🦶Every Writer Walks a Unique Path: Success, Envy, and Being Yourself

Most of us have a nasty habit of comparing ourselves to other writers and authors. Let’s stop. We each walk a unique path of creativity and fulfillment.

President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” That’s reason enough to curtail comparing, but another good reason is to avoid the risk of being drawn down the dark road of envy.

Envy is defined as: a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another’s possessions, qualities, or luck.

When you’ve been writing for a long time and still haven’t experienced the kind of success you’d hoped for, envy finds its way in.

Writers want to experience success in their vocations just like anyone else. In many fields, a desire for personal success is often connected to a belief that social recognition and increased status will make us more lovable and worthy of attention. But even deeper than this, perhaps unconscious, is a fundamental longing to be a part of something that matters.

For writers, this longing is usually activated by having read something that mattered to us when we were young. Something that changed us, that woke us up to the possibility that we could be creative too.

A desire to be successful at something that is personally meaningful seems reasonable enough to me. But the journey between realizing one’s desire to create and becoming a person— like a writer—who makes things to share with the world (and maybe even gets paid for it), can be a long one. On that long and winding road one feels many things, including admiration for those writers one strives to emulate. But over time admiration can twist into envy. When it does, try to learn from it.

If you envy an author’s success it usually means you also want such success, but it feels out of reach. Envy arises when what we long for feels too far away from our own reality. We tend to admire what we believe is still within reach.

The antidote to envy and comparison is to first lean into your individuality, to go back to your initial hopes and dreams and take stock.

What dreams do you have for your writer-self? What is the reality you perceive around you right now? How big is the gap between? And within that gap, how many steps would it take to get from reality to dream? How many of those are within your control?

Every single writer has their own row to hoe in the great garden of the creative writing world. No two lives are the same and no two voices are the same.

Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Douglas Adams, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, and James Joyce have little in common with each other—divided by time and taste and so much more—but they all share(d) a common commitment to the written word. They dreamed, drafted, revised, and submitted their work. And each possessed the kind of talent, tenacity, and luck that supported getting their work published and having it last.

Though I typed that list of writers randomly, on reflection I’ve learned something big or small from each of them at some point. I bet you have too.

We all need role models, but we cannot be them. We can only be ourselves—unabashedly, authentically, and unapologetically.

As we write, no doubt we’ll fall short of our envied and admired ideals, but we will allow something new to enter the world, something that can only come through our unique ways of seeing the world.

It makes no sense to compare ourselves to writers of the past, or even those in the present, except to acknowledge the common element that truly matters: a love for and commitment to the written word.

The writers of the past didn’t know if they would become known, successful, stand the test of time, or remain unknown forever, but they wrote anyway. Those of us writing now will be, in the future, the writers of the past. Known and unknown. That last bit is a gamble, and mostly out of our control, except for the foundational part: doing the actual writing in our inevitably unique ways.

“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

“Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

~ Natalie Goldberg ~

Your Vein of Gold ⚡

You can probably relate to a feeling that the process writing exacts some quantity of your own blood, sweat, and tears. But do you realize you can also draw on your vein of gold?

Your vein of gold refers to your personal zone of authentic excellence. When you're feeling "in flow," it's this inner treasure that's flowing. Think of those times when you feel in your "element" (as coined by Sir Ken Robinson), connected to your essential self, and able to express certain innate, unique talents.

Julia Cameron wrote a book with the title, The Vein of Gold (a recommended follow up to The Artist's Way as it's more valuable to the committed creator). In the book she refers to a conversation she had with the director, Martin Ritt (pp.98-99). As a director, he was always trying to draw out the best in his actors, something he called their vein of gold, by which he meant "a certain territory, a certain range, they were born to play." Ritt believed if you cast the actor in roles representing that vein, the actor would always shine. Which didn't mean actors couldn't also give very good performances outside their vein of gold, but there would be a difference. 

Julia Cameron then reflects on the differences between Robert De Niro's memorable roles in films with themes related to "male bonding, loyalties and betrayals" compared to his good but less resonant roles involving relationships with women. She mentions Kevin Kline, a skilled dramatic actor who is most known for his comedic wit and timing (remember A Fish Called Wanda?). Then there's Meryl Streep, who takes our breath away in high dramas. Some will argue she gives a noteworthy performance in every role, and she herself loves comedy, but the Devil Wears Prada, Mama Mia, and It's Complicated don't expose the same vein of gold as Sophie's Choice, Out of Africa, or The Deer Hunter. 

All creators can do excellent work outside their vein of gold, but the possibility for brilliant work, the kind with memorable, remarkable resonance, flows from one's vein of gold. 

So how does one tap into this? It takes a degree of self knowledge and awareness. You may have to dig deep into your heart and psyche to access your personal ore. And you may need to consult some others who know you well. Because it's often what others can see shining through you when you forget they're watching. Its natural, deep, and not always obvious to your conscious mind.

Yes, your vein of gold is often connected to what you like, love, admire, and aspire to, but it's also connected to what frightens, angers, or drives you to despair. Essentially, it's connected to what moves you. It's part of what moves under the surface of your being that inspires the words and deeds that flow most naturally through you.

One way to start your personal mining is to pay attention to stories that have lasting resonance for you. Without thinking too hard, list five to eight of your favorite films. Then spend some time thinking about what they all have in common (even if at first it appears they have nothing in common, persevere, because I assure you they do--to you). Do the same with five to eight of your favorite books from when you were young--the ones you've reread, the ones that linger, the ones that trigger something in your heart, no matter what the trigger is. 

It's very important that your mining expedition carries no judgement. A fascination with serial killer stories may reveal how much you care about order restoring chaos, about justice and mercy. Flights into fantasy may expose your faith in the higher powers and integrity that underlie good magic. Sad love stories may point to the importance of profound human connection that is often elusive. You're simply looking for clues about what matters deeply to you. Your vein of gold flows from these deepest zones. 

More clues are lurking in the news stories that grip you, the delights that lead to spontaneous smiles or laughter, the tears that arise in witness to another's plight. All these ways you can be moved will point to certain values at play--freedom, truth, justice, creation, love--and at stake when in opposition--freedom/oppression, truth/deception, justice/corruption, creation/destruction, love/hatred. 

By locating some of those values in the resonant stories you've chosen, as films or books, and noticing how they flow through those particular characters and situations, you'll begin to see the connections that allow you to strike your personal, creative mother lode.

"A creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies."
~ Willa Cather ~

"If a story is in you, it has got to come out."

~ William Faulkner