I am a short Latina writer, but when I get in the grip of that old devil envy I wish I was a tall blonde–a tall blonde named J.K. Rowling.
Those are the days I long to be someone with a New York Times Bestseller or with a novel optioned for a movie to be directed by Ridley Scott. I am jealous of those with books in the heavens — the top 100 of Amazon.com.
Or I wonder about how the heck a particularly book has sold so many copies when it sucked.
This is writers envy and you are a better person than me if you have never suffered from it.
When that little devil grabs my ankles, it fills me up with crippling self-doubt and makes me not want to write anymore. It makes me say “what the heck am I knocking myself out for?”
So what happens when that I’m in the grips of writers envy?
I write and write some more. Because as bad as that devil envy makes me feel, not writing makes me fill worse.
I realize that although I can’t write about boy wizards, that I can write about other things, that my voice is unique as are my stories.
Yes my royalities are not in the same hemisphere as those big guys. I mean, come on, few of us have those. But I am grateful for what I have and that I have more stories to tell.