Hi everyone.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written here. I meant to write more—I swear I did—but grad school is hella busy. Who knew? Sarcasm aside, with all the schoolwork I had to do, all the creative projects I was juggling, and all the responsibilities of everyday life piled on top of that, I ended up putting off posting here. And then putting it off again. And then, well, one day I woke up and realized it’d been two months since my last post, and I didn’t have enough energy or motivation to get back on the horse.

Now, though, it’s January. It’s a new year (2025 already? We’re already halfway through the 2020s? Holy Hanna, the time sure flies). And, as one of my New Year’s resolutions, I wanted to get the blog going again. And really get it going this time: not just post once a month, or once every two months, but semi-consistently. Yeah, yeah, I know: I’ve said that before, and I ended up trailing off. The worst part is, I can’t promise that won’t happen again: grad school really is hella busy.

But I’m going to try.

And, in the spirit of not just reviving BS&K, but taking it to strange new places, I decided to come back not with a Writing Update (I’ll have one of those next week), but a discussion on one of the biggest traps a writer, or really anyone in any creative field, can fall into.

I call it Artist’s Envy.

I think I’ve maybe said this before, but if so it bears repeating: at least 90% of artists are insecure. Part of that, of course, is because most people in general are insecure, but another part of that is I think insecure types tend to gravitate toward the arts. For insecure people, the arts tend to be a haven, a place they can escape from the agonies of everyday life and just be themselves.

At least until they start comparing their stuff to what everyone else is doing. Then they get insecure all over again. More than that, though: they start getting jealous. They start looking at other artists who have much bigger social media followings, artists who’re selling more, artists who’re making stuff they couldn’t imagine living up to, and they despair. Why can’t I be like them, they ask? Why can’t I be as good as my heroes? Or, alternatively, why aren’t I getting as much attention as this hack over here? Their writing is garbage! Why do they have 300K Instagram followers, and I don’t even have a thousand? Why are they on the NYT list, and I don’t even have a book deal?

That, my friends, is Artist’s Envy. Comparing yourself to others, getting insecure, and then letting yourself grow bitter and petty over not having what they have (or what you think they have).

Now, Artist’s Envy is dangerous for a lot of reasons. For one, it feeds your ego: part of what fuels Artist’s Envy is the thought, whether it be explicit or implicit, that I deserve what they have just as much as they do. This, then, reinforces a thought pattern: my art is all about me. My art is about making me feel good about myself. It’s not just about telling a good story, making something I enjoy, or that other people enjoy. It’s not just about trying to improve your craft, tighten your narratives, make your stories the best they can be on their own merits. Now, it’s about me. It’s about what I can do. And as soon as it gets to be all about me, my self-worth starts riding on external success markers.

And that way lies madness. This is the second big reason Artist’s Envy is so dangerous: it distorts your perspective. Writing—or doing any kind of art, really—in order to get rich and famous is a madman’s folly. You’re about as likely to win the lottery. Maybe less. And writing in order to sell more copies than x author, or get more acclaim than x author is an exercise in madness, too, because there’s no end point. There’s always someone else you can compare yourself to. Even if you do get published and start making sales, there’s always some author out there making more sales than you, or getting more love than you.

There’s a third reason, too, why Artist’s Envy is so dangerous: it colours your interactions with other artists. Writing is often (not always, but often) a pretty solitary art: even with that said, though, writers do get together. Writers do talk to one another. And if you’re talking to author B, and author B is doing better than you, you can really approach that two ways. You can approach it filled with Artist’s Envy, meaning you’ll act cold and curt toward them, leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouths; or you can approach them as someone you’d like to get to know better, both as a person and an artist. Then, you might not only make a cool new friend, but get some helpful tips on the process as well…or, who knows? Maybe even make an industry connection.

Yes, Artist’s Envy is a dangerous thing. Let it control you, and it can destroy your creative life. You might well find yourself less able to write anything, if everything you do is coloured by how jealous you are of someone else.

That being said, a little Artist’s Envy is normal. I’ve felt it a lot over the years: I’ve gotten better at controlling it, but even now, I have my moments. I have them when I think of the fact Stephen King published Carrie at age 26; I’m almost 30, and haven’t come close to even putting out a book. I have them when I see bestselling fantasy author R.F. Kuang’s books on the shelves, an author who just so happens to be around my age. I have them when I read my favourite series, like A Song of Ice and Fire or Malazan Book of the Fallen or The Green Bone Saga (among many more), and despair that I’ll never be nearly as good at this as these people.

Now, though, when I have them, I try to keep perspective. Because sitting there despairing over how much better everyone else is doing than you is counterproductive. You’re never going to make anything good if you’re just trying to one-up somebody else. And you’re never going to be happy with what you do, either, even if you eventually do one-up that somebody else. You might feel happy for a moment, but then your fragile, insecure ego will turn to some new target and demand you best them. Then, maybe, you’ll truly be happy.

But no. Artist’s Envy doesn’t work like that. Give yourself to it, and it will never stop taking. It’ll drain you and drain you and drain you some more until you have nothing left. Until you want to give up this whole artist thing forever, because none of it’s fun anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

How do you avoid Artist’s Envy? From my experience, there are two things that really help: one is keeping perspective. Remembering that you don’t have to be one of the lucky ones to be valid. Remembering that success isn’t measured by sales and bestseller lists. Not in any objective sense, anyway. No, at the end of the day, you decide what success looks like.

And you’d be surprised how many people might be jealous of the success you’ve had, even if, by the standards of sales and bestseller lists, it’s been pretty limited. My example: a lot of people seem astonished when they hear I’ve written nine books (and those are just the ones I’ve written all the way through). I always reply with a sheepish “yeah, well, none of them are published yet, so…” But…maybe I shouldn’t. Publication is a worthy goal, yes, and one I’ll keep striving for, but considering how many aspiring authors out there try to write their first book and give up halfway through, even getting all the way through one first draft is a pretty big achievement. And I’ve done that nine times.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to brag here. And I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t strive for more with your artwork: you absolutely should push yourself. What I’m saying is, don’t bet the farm on hitting it big. Instead, judge your success by your own standards. Small successes are just as valid as big successes. And always remember that the most important thing in art is that you love what you’re doing.

That’s the second major key to avoiding Artist’s Envy: creating for joy, not for attention.

But I’ll talk more about that another time. For now, as always: have fun, stay safe, and keep reading.