Beyond Comparisons

Taking pleasure in what you have

In This Issue

• Note from Shelley

• Art: Photograph by Shelley enhanced using the Prisma app

• November Pappus (i.e. Musings on Stuff)

• Journal Prompt

• Publishing & Other News

Note from Shelley

Happy Turkey Month, lovelies! I hope you have all recovered from election fatigue and are moving on to happier holiday thoughts. For my American readers, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to a quiet and delicious meal of turkey and all the usual side dishes. Except green bean casserole. I’m not a fan. Instead my son-in-law is making his family’s recipe for corn-pudding casserole. Yum! 

Confession time: I’ve been listening to instrumental Christmas music since November 1st. It’s giving me all the cozy feels, and nothing anyone can say on the matter will take away my pleasure. I need the comfort right now, and I swear my blood pressure goes down when I’m listening to it. I haven’t succumbed to putting up a tree yet. I will wait until December, but I’ve been thinking about it, believe me. 

How about you? Are you a Christmas as soon a possible person? Or a strict wait until after Thanksgiving person?

This month I’m thinking about comparing ourselves to others, how it’s normal but so corrosive. We have enough going on in our lives right now without adding jealousy to the mix. I hope the November pappus encourages you to rethink the urge to compare your life to the life of others.

Because I want you to be happy.

Because I care.

Because I think we are all better off, collectively and individually, when we give the old heave-ho to the green-envy nasties. 

I’m so grateful for you, my dear readers. Sending you love, good cheer, and contentment. Read on!

Xoxo,

Shelley

November Art

I took this month’s photograph while out on a walk in Maine this month. I loved how the white flower showed up against the brownish-gold of the fallen leaves. The Prisma app turned it into something a little more like a painting, though it’s a bit blurry. Nobody’s perfect. Especially me.

Meanwhile, I’ve found a new type of photo art that I want to try. More on that in upcoming newsletters.

November Pappus

In November we hear a lot about gratitude. With America’s Thanksgiving holiday looming, I’m tempted to write about being grateful for our blessings, not just on one day but on every day. This is a good practice, of course. When we think about the parts of our lives that are serene, that are working, that bring us contentment and even joy, we feel uplifted.

But that’s not the whole story, is it?

Just because we are grateful for what we have, doesn’t mean we don’t continue to want. Often we want what other people have. 

It’s human nature to want more. It’s what drives us forward. It’s also what drives us to cut corners, cheat, lie, spin, take advantage of others, and even agitate others to do the same on our behalf. Some of us try to “game the system” by breaking the rules of engagement, counting on the fact that our competitors will be following those rules, and so we will gain advantage.

Some of us justify these antisocial behaviors by saying we are doing bad for a good cause. Nuh-uh. Sorry. If you believe this, you are fooling yourself. Ends don’t justify awful means. Not really. Because when cheating becomes the norm, when “gaming the system” turns into “nobody following the rules,” society breaks down. Chaos reigns. Anarchy becomes the norm. We all lose.

Civilization is built on commonly-accepted rules, and when everyone breaks the rules, civilization collapses. I like civilization, personally. That’s just me.

But this isn’t exactly what I want to write about this month, either. I want to write about comparison and why it’s something we might want to avoid. These topics do overlap. Let me explain.

My struggle

Lately I’ve been thinking about my passion for writing, and even more specifically, my professional writing career. Forty years. That’s how long I’ve held this idea in my head that if I worked hard, practiced, learned, read all kinds of books, and wrote nearly every day, I’d one day be able to make a living wage—or half of one–by writing good books that many people would enjoy. 

I’ve enjoyed the process. I truly have. Writing, and working to become proficient at writing, has given my life meaning. I’ve been engaged and challenged. For this, I am grateful. There is, however, another side of the coin, the flip side, the outward-facing side, the one that pays the bills. 

Over these four decades, the publishing industry changed. I knew it because I lived it. I didn’t need someone to tell me. Sometimes hearing it from someone else validates the experience, though. This happened to me recently when I read The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman. In this nonfiction book, Castleman covered the history of the business of publishing, from scroll to Kindle Direct Publishing. I knew, instinctively, that the field had become crowded since the advent of ebooks, indie publishing, and Amazon KDP, but I hadn’t realized the scope of the change. I didn’t have the numbers. My eyes popped open when I read this: 

“In 1980 . . . U.S. publishers released 42,377 titles. Today, with indie-press releases and self-published e-books, it’s 2.7 million, sixty-six times as many.” (The Untold Story of Books, Michael Castleman, p. 156)

In other words, forty years, give or take. The same forty years I spent trying to become good enough for a publishing landscape. It was in the mid-1980s when I started writing with an eye to publication. I was sixteen at the time. I’m now 56. I’ve become proficient, good enough to be published by a traditional small press.

But it’s not 1986 anymore, and being “good enough” doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did back then. In 1986 my book would have been competing with 42,000 books, give or take. Now my books are competing with 2,700,000 books. The field is more than saturated. It’s overflowing. It’s a deluge.

Lesson: I should have published sooner. I failed to take advantage of a situation which, in hindsight, would have been much easier to navigate. 

Some are thriving

Despite the competition, however, some writers are actually thriving in this marketplace. For one reason or another, they’ve broken out of the pack and are racing ahead. They are the shiny needles in the haystack, easy to spot and pick. They are floating on the surface of the literary sea. I spend time, maybe too much time, analyzing books and authors, trying to suss out exactly what they did– and continue to do–to stand out. 

I’ve come to realize there is a formula to this kind of success. First, write a good book that lots of people will enjoy. Next, get an agent on board, one with some clout. Third, get a powerful editor of a major publishing company to champion your book and offer you a big advance. (Or build a time machine and go back about ten or fifteen years and self-publish twenty books to rapid release and build your email list to 10k followers.)

Only one of these factors is in an author’s control. The rest is luck. (Or fantasy.)

It’s enough to make a girl cry. But what exactly am I crying about? What does this have to do with my pleasure in writing? Does the current publishing reality take anything away from me that I’ve already earned, acquired, or learned? 

Nope!

What I’m struggling with–and maybe you struggle with–is comparison.

How do my sales compare to this week’s NYTimes Bestseller’s sales? How do my earnings compare to the earnings of that big-name author in my genre? How many followers does that best-selling novelist have on Facebook or Instagram, and why can’t I reach those same people? What do they have that I don’t? Why do they get to bask in success while I’m struggling just to get by? To make over 500 sales. To make over 100 sales?

Do you struggle, too?

Is it just me? Do you struggle with comparison, too? 

Maybe your thing isn’t writing. Maybe you want to have a gorgeous home, and you spend some time following decorating accounts on social media. You compare your interiors to the ones you see on posts and feel discontented with your more humble abode. 

Maybe you want to build your small into something extraordinary and profitable, but you struggle where others seem to float easily to success. 

Maybe you want that industry award and recognition for your talent and effort, but someone else steps up, beaming, to the stage. 

Maybe you go on a diet and begin an exercise program, but the scale doesn’t move and then your friend gushes about how they’ve started Ozempic and the pounds are just melting away, easy peasy. 

You fuss. You fume. You look at your pudgy waistline and fail to recognize that you’ve taken the stairs without huffing and puffing this morning. You don’t even notice that you take a pass on the second slice of garlic bread with your pasta and reach for the salad instead. You forget the client who called and said how much they appreciated your taking the extra time on their project. You don’t notice the way the morning light falls on the new green paint on your living room wall. Instead of celebrating the two percent increase in your company’s business sales over last year, you fret about a competitor’s burgeoning clientele list. You feel resentful and dissatisfied and lonely and discouraged.

It’s okay. It’s normal. It’s human. We all want more. 

But here’s the thing. We can make an effort to enjoy what we have. We can discipline ourselves to stop comparing our success–or our kitchens–with others’ successes and designer appliances. Seneca, a wise Stoic philosopher, tells us that jealousy of others is self-torture. 

“Let us take pleasure in what we have received and make no comparison; no man will ever be happy if tortured by the greater happiness of another.”― from Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

No one ever said being a good human was easy. It’s hard. That’s why so many people take shortcuts. That’s how we end up with leaders who con us into believing they will solve all our problems when all they really want is more power or bigger compensation packages or a get out of jail free card. Ignore them if you can. When we judge them, we are also comparing. We are comparing ourselves to them and feeling like we, too, should lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. 

Do you think they are happy? I seriously doubt it. 

Would you want that fancy kitchen if you had to sell your soul to get it? Would I want to be a best-selling author if I had to compromise my integrity and write stories I don’t enjoy? 

Stop comparing; Start enjoying

Here’s the thing. We can be happier if we stop comparing and, instead, take pleasure in what we’ve accomplished. 

Maybe I’ll never make a living wage through writing. It’s likely I won’t. I can, however, enjoy the process of writing, of improving, of creating a world with nothing but 26 letters and a word processor, or a notebook and pencil if it comes to that. 

Lately I’ve been obsessed with redoing my kitchen. My Facebook feed is full of re-posts of pretty, cozy kitchens right now. I’m dreaming, not comparing. I know I might never have a house perfect enough to be photographed for the pages of Better Homes & Gardens. I can, however, take inspiration from what I see. I can use what I already have to decorate my interior spaces.

Pretty books on my desk

I can take pleasure in creating small vignettes of family photos, a scented candle, and wildflowers picked from the roadside or some dried hydrangeas from my friend’s summer garden. I might be able to paint my cupboards a soft blue or sage green and change out the hardware even if I can’t get all new cabinets and lighting and a fancy six-burner stove, but even if I don’t, I can be happy that my stove works and that the cupboards have (mostly) survived twenty years of heavy use and that I have a husband who could fix the one that broke so it’s usable.

We can be happy with what we have and who we are if we stop comparing ourselves to others. 

My November wish for you

This November I wish you tranquility and peace and contentment. Remember to take pleasure in the little things. Forgo unnecessary and toxic comparison. Be grateful for what you have.  

Journal Prompt

Write about feeling jealous of someone else’s situation or success. How do those feelings manifest themselves? Try to find some metaphors. “When I compare myself to ________, it feels like_________________.” Get it all out on the page. All the rage. All the frustration. All the fear of failure. Now take a deep breath and write about what you DO have. What is good in your life or in this situation? Let the comparisons fade away and concentrate on your own life. How far have you come from where you started? How does it feel when you concentrate on your blessings? “When I think about _______________, instead, it feels like ________________.” 

Are you enjoying these prompts? Let me know if you do or if you’d rather I didn’t bother with them.

Publishing & Other News

This month has been uplifting and good for my soul. On November 7, I gave a reading at the Limerick Public Library. I shared the first chapter of the second Olivia Lively mystery, NIGHT MOVES, plus a scene from the women’s fiction novel I’m rewriting for potential publication, working title ROSALIE. It was fun to chat with a friendly group of friends, neighbors, and readers in such a low-key and stress-free way. I sold some books. I signed some books. I met some new people. Wonderful! 

On November 14, I was a guest on Sarah E. Burr and J.C. Kenny’s podcast, The Bookish Hour. Quite a few of my peeps tuned in live (Thank you! Thank you!) and others have listened to the recording. I totally loved talking with Sarah and J.C. about Olivia Lively, writing mysteries, my path to publication, how I weave friendship and dating plotlines in with crime plots, and even how to get by in Maine when the power goes out!

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I think that’s it for now. I’m in the process of gathering a bunch of my short holiday stories into a collection that I hope to make available for free in the next couple of weeks. I’ll probably send out a short email when it’s ready to go so you can download it if you want.