Pitch Wars and Professional Envy
It’s Pitch Wars showcase season again, and while my instinct is to say “I can’t believe it’s already been a year!”, I also know time no longer has meaning. As a quick recap, I got selected for Pitchwars in November 2019. My mentor Rob Hart helped me whip an early draft of THE SLEEPLESS into shape, and we had the agent showcase in February 2020.
The showcase was my first experience of the business side of writing. It was the first time a novel-length work of mine was seen by a publishing professional; I’d never even queried prior to Pitch Wars. So it was a lot of firsts, but most of all, it was my first experience with professional envy.
The green-eyed monster is pretty hard to slay.
This past week saw a torrent of conversations about writing as competition. Someone posited that one’s writer friends are also one’s competition, couching it as “harsh writing advice.” I’m not going to go into all the ways that idea is misguided and harmful, though it does come at a time when I’m thinking about “winning” and “losing” and “being ahead”, all these notions that come up during Pitch Wars season.
Pitch Wars is such a rollercoaster ride and it definitely made me feel like a “winner” and a “loser” depending on the day. My pitch and excerpt gained quite a bit of attention in the showcase, exceeding both my and my mentor’s expectations. It definitely felt like I was in an enviable position, and I enjoyed it.
Then came the long wait for agent offers. Many in my Pitch Wars cohort got agent offers so quickly; meanwhile there I was frantically refreshing my inbox for emails that never came. When they did, they were rejections. One after another. It sent me into a pit of despair and envy, and I thought to myself, this is my karmic comeuppance.
Writing is not Highlander—there can be more than one.
It was in those throes of despair that I sought help from more experienced writer folk, those who had gone through what I was going through, on both sides. Folks who’ve had their share of “wins” and “losses.” Their words and delivery differed, but the wisdom I got from everyone was uniform:
Eyes on your own paper. Focus on the work.
This is not to say that envy is an invalid emotion. It’s hard to avoid, especially when someone’s been raised in a capitalistic society where scarcity is manufactured and everything is set up as a competition. Publishing is part of that system, and in many ways, it encourages envy. So when the emotion comes to me, I’ve learned to acknowledge its existence, then I harness it to clarify the goals I set for myself.
When I’m struck with envy, I ask myself: what is it I envy about this writer? Or, what about this situation makes me unhappy with the writing that I’m doing, with the writer that I am? Sometimes there is a distinct answer, and it helps me define my writing goals better; it puts my desires into sharp relief.
More often, there is no answer: the more I question myself, the more I realize that what I think of as envy is another emotion completely. It might be anxiety about how little time I have to write, or fear that I’ve plateaued in terms of skill, or sadness about something completely unrelated to what I am writing.
Always though, it is not anything about the other person experiencing success.
Envy comes from the mindset that writing is a competition, that someone’s win is another’s loss. That if you’re not winning, then you must be losing. None of that helps one become a better writer or a better member of the writing community.
It took some work for me to understand that, and I’m constantly working on it as I grow in this career. I still need to tell myself that no matter what happens to me—good or bad—the work is what matters. Good things that happen to other writers do not take away from the writing that I do, the effort I put in, the worlds that I build.
And also, sulking in a corner is not as fun as cheering people on.