Five Tips For Overcoming Jealousy

Recently, I've joined several online writing communities, comprised of Teenagers Who Are Serious About Writing. It's been really cool to read their writing, see how other creative people approach their work, etc. Lately, though, it's been getting to me.

It's not that they're shallow or self-absorbed or vindictive, from what I can tell. It's that their writing is consistently better than mine, in a way that mine simply doesn't match up. I love seeing them be successful, because who doesn't love other young artists doing awesome things and changing the world? At the same time, I wish I was that successful. Frankly, as a competitive, Type-A person, this stings.

Granted, I'm comparing myself to the people who are National Poets, the people who are Finalists in YoungArts (which means that out of 10,000 applicants, they're the top 1.5%), the people who start really cool literary magazines. They've been published in real literary magazines, (probably) been writing since birth, and been accepted to top universities because of their writing prowess. Obviously, these peers are a select few, and I know that most writers aren't up to this skill level at this age. However, I'm still jealous about how they seem to be doing all of these really amazing things, and I'm not.

The Internet has exacerbated this so that if you choose to, you can surround yourself with the highest-achieving, most mind-blowingly awesome writers. This is fantastic, but it can feel alienating when it seems like everyone else is getting traditionally published at the age of sixteen or has a literary agent or has, at least, finished more than one draft of a novel. This has made me feel inadequate, although at least I've kept writing.

In case you couldn't tell, this has been a personal struggle for me lately, so here are five tips about overcoming writer-jealousy (at least temporarily):

Congratulate the people you're envying. I'm sure that they'd like to know that you appreciate their work, since everyone likes compliments. Plus, as a young artist, you know that it feels like your voice isn't heard.

2. Do something different. Maybe paint, or take a walk, or scuba dive (okay, maybe not that last one). Try to stop focusing on the negative aspects of your work and take a break for a bit. It'll help, I promise.

3. Remember that not everyone is The Most Amazing and Prolific Novelist and Poet Goddess Ever by the age of eighteen. It's awesome if you are, and you're going to keep working on your craft, but if you aren't, it really shouldn't be the end of the world.

4. Come back to your writing. Again, you could try something different. Perhaps rhyming if you're into free-verse, or nonfiction if you mainly write poetry. I've written before about how poetry has helped me, even though I hadn't really thought of it as something I'd like, or something that I'd be good at.

5. Write a letter to yourself reminding yourself that you're more than your writing and your insecurities. Last night, I was really feeling the toll of this deluge of teenage writers doing amazing things I haven't done, and so I wrote myself a letter, on paper. Old-school, I know. I basically reminded myself that I'm still a good person, no matter what my literary accolades are, and that I write because I love writing, not out of sheer competitiveness.

Any tips I missed? How do you deal with jealousy so it doesn't cripple your work?

You Know What I Love? Waiting for Rejection

Every single person has a fear of rejection, including me. Despite this, in the last month, I've submitted to several journals and lit-mags, most of which are authored and edited by high-school or college-students. I've edited and fully overanalyzed my writing. I've perused the submission guidelines, even though they're all basically the same.  (Then to make sure, I perused them again.)

Last month, I entered the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and so I should hear back within the next month. Now, I get to wait. I'm going to focus on writing poetry, reading, maybe editing my novel, and writing some more creative nonfiction.

Deadlines are hard, but I'm fairly certain I submitted everything on time. Besides, the worst thing that can happen is that my writing isn't accepted into these certain publications at this exact point in my life.  Writing is incredibly subjective; one person's genius is another's stupidity. Even if it all goes terribly, I'll know that I tried, that I'm much better at writing than I was even two months ago, that there'll be some cookie-dough in the fridge if I need it.

Do you have any tips for not feeling bad about inevitable rejections?

The spaces between the words {poetry}

I've always found poetry to be bland. There, I said it. Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman: although these are all well-known, "good" poets, my exposure to poetry had always been in the form of memorizing poetry for school or from an anthology of "Great American Women Poets"; that is to say, unsettlingly bland. I'd never really understood their poetry, and so it felt impersonal, meaningless.

This past year, poetry changed for me. I read the daily poems on Poetry Daily, and browsed poets by subject on Poets.org. I listened to extremely awesome spoken-word artists. I tried to find a poem to recite for Speech (I'm in the Poetry category), something that I'd truly enjoy remembering. I read young poets' writing, like Peter LaBerge and Alicia Lai (seriously, go look them up, as they are epic). I began to love the poetry of poets such as Carmen Giménez Smith and Jorie Graham.

I internalized their poetry, read them over and over until they took on a meaning for me, until they embodied the listless minutes waiting for class to end, the ebb and flow of students rushing down the green-linoleum halls. Furthermore, as a Reader at Polyphony HS, I analyzed the poetry's inner workings, the tenuous -precarious- ligaments pulling together the poem, giving it structure and meaning.

  Poetry has such a capability to embody the human experience, even more so, than prose. As such, I decided that I'd write a poem every day, as a challenge. Only a few days in, I'm already scrambling for topics, ways to make the mundane interesting. This means yellow Post-Its littering my bookcase, handwritten fragments tossed in jumbled lines. This means a simmering realization that I'm writing in a style that's been used for thousands of years. This means I'm attempting an exercise in  understanding, to see just how well I know -and will know- myself and the world around me. A poem tries to define a moment, a life, a consciousness, which is exactly what makes it so powerful.                

Read a poem today; better yet, write one. You might like what you find.