I think there are three main things that make me feel jealous of another writer.

1. If the person seems to be more popular than me.
2. If I read their stuff and I think they are more talented than me.
3. If the person seems to be more committed and a harder worker than me.

Hmmm… Can’t say that sounds all too healthy, does it. The first one, I don’t even care if the person is a good writer, all I care about is popularity. The second is comparing talent which is almost, if not absolutely, impossible because we all write differently. I find myself comparing my talent “levels” to people who write totally differently than me.

A couple of years ago, in a creative writing course, I told my teacher I was afraid I’d never succeed as a writer because other writers were able to write hundreds of words on topics that I couldn’t imagine writing so much about. I was at once jealous of that ability of working through ideas that way, but at the same time didn’t truly feel I wanted to write like that anyway. I very much believe in getting the point across as quickly as possible. (btw, this is one of the reasons I love blogging; you just write as much or as little as you want.) But I still felt like there was something lacking in my writing because I like writing short. (Not including this blog post, apparently.)

My teacher at the time, Paul Belserene, told me that there is a writer – I wish I could remember his name – who wrote a whole book of just very short sentences, each one a piece unto itself. I think Paul was trying to teach me not to compare and not to have expectations of what my writing “should” be without challenging those expectations. Who said writing should be a certain way?

My last reason for jealousy, at first seems so ridiculous. I’m jealous that someone is trying harder than me? What if this motivated person is a “horrible” writer? And really, if there is one thing over which we supposedly have control, it’s the amount of work we put into something. Jealous of someone else’s talent, maybe, but jealous that the person sits down and writes? Geez, just sit down and write yourself!

But no, it’s way more complex than that. It is a myriad of psychological factors stopping the writer from sitting down to write. And seeing someone who, supposedly, is free of all those blocks, really is the ultimate reason to feel jealous.

Or… dare I say, the ultimate reason to take heed, look at that person, ask yourself how they do it when you don’t seem to be able to, and work on doing it.

“קנאת סופרים תרבה חוכמה” This famous saying from the Talmud means that jealousy amongst the wise leads to more studying. Meaning, if you’re jealous of someone else in your trade, it will motivate you to become better yourself.

Is that true? Do you find your jealousy, if you have any of course, is helpful or destructive? Does it make you want to go and create or go back to bed?

Interestingly, Benji Lovitt, a fellow writer, told me he thinks we feel jealous when we’re not doing all we can do. Whatever the jealousy might feel like – whether it feels as if it’s about the other person’s popularity or talent – he’s saying that if the person is putting the most he can into his writing, he won’t feel jealous. I assume that that is what he found with himself. An interesting idea… And if that is true, the next important question is, why am I not doing all I can do? What is it that is stopping me from trying to write as much or as well as I want to?

Here is a song about how we feel about the world – well, the day – when we aren’t feeling jealousy towards people. Actually, it’s just an excuse to post this song here because it was just playing in the cafe where I’m sitting and I love it.

But it never sits right with me when people say that and I just put my finger on why. I’m getting stuff out there, I’m writing, I’m creating, but I’m not actually focusing my creative energy into the thing(s) I’m most emotionally connected to, the stuff that is my real dreams.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my blogs, I really do. But there are other things that are like my ultimate projects and it pains me when I forsake them.

And why is that? Why is it that I so consistantly abandon my true dream? Oh, it’s so damn obvious. I’m terrified it won’t be good. Creativity had me at, “You might fail.”

You know why I write? Because I feel like I have to. It’s like I need to and it makes me feel good.

But that isn’t to say that it doesn’t torture me as well. How painful I find it to be in the state of feeling the need to create. Mainly I think this is because of the mental blocks that stop the creation from happening. We all know constipation can hurt bad. Creation constipation kills too.

Actually, in an amazing 19 minute video by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, Gilbert says that the creative process has been, literally, killing the greatest artists for the last couple of hundreds of years.

Her theory, based on other’s theories as well, is that today we’re all about individuality. What we create is ours and came directly from us. So when we succeed, it’s euphoric and when we fail, it kills us. More than that, it’s hard to even put the pen to the paper – or the fingers to the keyboard – because so freakin’ much is riding on every word that it freezes you with fear.

On the other hand, it used to be believed – I think she said in Ancient Rome and Greece – that there was a muse, a genius or just some ghost-type-thing that was with the artist, helping them along. Or not. Either way, then, when there was success, it couldn’t get too much to your head because you knew you weren’t solely reliable for the results and if a creation failed, also, it wouldn’t necessarily totally break you.

There is a book I recently read which pretty much talks about the same idea. The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, like this video, is highly, highly recommended.

It kills me – don’t worry, not really – how much time I “waste” because I just can’t get myself to sit down and work. The blocks feel so real. But when I hear about these ideas, it helps me understand where my fears of trying are coming from and it also helps me believe that, over time, I’ll be able to feel more at peace with just trying.

What Gilbert and Pressfield say is that the only thing we have to do is our part. Our part is to sit down and write. The muse’s part (or whatever you want to call it, I might call it some type of Godliness) is to support us and help our work become the best it can be.

P.S. Please don’t be fooled. This piece itself took me days to get around to writing because of my blocks.

Worth taking a look.

Does anyone have solutions, either practical, emotional or spiritual?

We need to put ourselves out there as writers. We need to decide what we want to say, say it to the world and then just hold on for dear life!

There is a very smart saying in Yiddish that goes something like this: “You are the master of your words as long as they are still in your mouth. Once they are out, the other person is the master.”

If taken the wrong way, this idea can be paralyzing. So often our words are taken not how we meant or after we say/write them, we feel regret. Maybe we feel embarrassed by our words and wish we hadn’t said them.

But I think the point is that we are supposed to do our utmost to share with the world the words we think are best and then…. let go. They belong to us no longer. Yes, you might often have opportunities to explain them later but you will never be able to fully take them back and you can never have control over how other people understand and use them.

So we needn’t waste energy on worrying about these things. We need only act scrupulously in what we put out. And then, hold on to your hats!

“I totally appreciate what you’re saying about needing to get external validation in order to feel good about what we’re doing. I often wonder what internal work would be required for me to gain personal satisfaction just from the process of writing, instead of waiting anxiously for a pat on the head, and feeling deflated if it doesn’t come. Why is it that I can’t form an opinion of my own work without outside help? Am I afraid that liking my own work is a kind of arrogance? What if I allow myself to feel good about something I’ve written and then someone else tears it to shreds? My ego is fragile enough as it is.

“I also think that writing is a form of communication, and we want it to be a dialogue rather than a soliloquy. I believe that we share our passions with the world to feel more connected with others. What better feeling is there than to discover that your words have inspired someone, or resonated with them deeply, or made them feel less alone? How can we know if we’ve connected if we get no response? It’s like that old adage about the tree: If your words fall in cyberspace and there’s no one there, do they make a sound?”

Uch, such great questions!!!

I wrote this on November 25, 2009 on deenascreations.com:

Here is a blog post I wrote on December 27, 2008 on deenascreations.com:

But there is serious responsibility here! We really need to make sure we protect the people we write about. In some cases, it’s totally removing the writing content from the person. In other instances, it’s asking the person for permission to quote them with their name, other times, without their name.

Here is a blog post I wrote on January 10, 2009 on deenascreations.com about an experience I had where I quoted a girl and then forgot to tell her. Granted, I quoted her by name to begin with because I “knew” she wouldn’t mind, but she ended up finding out that she was “famous” from someone else! A stranger!

Here is what I wrote:

The other day I quoted my friend Tamara in a blog post. I actually wrote her name and then proceeded to forget to tell her about it. So last night at the Kollel she introduced herself to someone and the other woman said, “Oh, you must be the Tamara that Deena just wrote about in her blog.”

I am actually extremely careful about who I quote and how I quote them. You may have noticed that I almost never write anyone’s names in my blog. And often if I refer to a conversation I had, I’ll make the details obscure so that the person’s privacy is kept. And even more so, if someone says something to me and I feel like writing about it but in a negative way, I probably won’t do it (I think that until now I never have) and if I really want to write about that topic, I’ll just generally refer to the topic without mentioning having spoken to people about it.

The last thing I want is for people to be nervous around me, the way we might get around reporters and psychologists. I am not blogging with the intention of hurting anyone or making anyone feel vulnerable. I said to Tamara, when she told me about the conversation she’d just had, that the only reason I wrote her name was because I had a very strong feeling that she wouldn’t mind. She said, “You’re right.”

Believe me. There is so much more I want to be writing here. But I want my blog to add goodness to the world and people’s privacy is not something worth “sacrificing” in order reach the goals of my blog. It would defeat the purpose.