Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Success

I'm fortunate enough to have a core group of writer friends, a critique group, and Sophia Nash as a mentor. Her third book in The Widow's Club series, Love With the Perfect Scoundrel, just hit the shelves. Her books are intelligent, witty and sexy. I’m waiting for my copy to arrive in a brown box on my doorstep any day. Sophia’s clear focus on the business of writing inspires me and she’s always willing to share valuable insider tidbits. I know she’ll be thrilled when I’m published, she’s told me so.

Many of my writer friends are on the cusp of being published. When they are, I will push any jealous thoughts away (I’d be lying if I said I won’t have any) and celebrate their launch. I’m pretty sure they’ll do the same for me. After all, I’m a better writer because of every one of them.


Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass agency links to one of her clients blogs. Jay Lake mentions a situation of professional jealousy that ruined a friendship. He writes, “As a result, someone whose name should be in the dedications of all my books is instead someone I have not seen or spoken to in years, and probably never will again.” That's just sad.

He offers some wise words: “My friends are my friends, and their successes only magnify our friendships.”

I agree!

5 comments:

Pamela Hammonds said...

I promise to:

Not be too envious of your success
Share in your success
Look for my name in your acknowledgments
List you in my acknowledgments
Sit next to you on the plane while you tour

It's not too much to ask, really is it?

Joan Mora said...

Not at all! I'm ready for the journey to begin!

Anonymous said...

Hi Joan!
Have you read Anne Lamott's book: "Bird By Bird" which has an absolutely hilarious take on writer jealousy? She had a friend who kept calling her all summer to gloat about a huge money contract. Lamott keeps channeling a southern-accented woman and says, "That's just graightttt (great)" about a zillion times before she tells the writer to stop calling her and go to ...you know.
Can't WAIT to see your name on the shelves, my friend. And I promise I won't say "graightttt" if you call me a zillion times.

Joan Mora said...

Hi Sophia!
I read it a long time ago--worth a re-read for sure.
Thanks as always for your encouragement!

Pamela Hammonds said...

Elizabeth Berg also has an 'envious friend' story in her writing book, 'Escaping into the Open.' Must be a pretty common scenario. Sad but true. And I can certainly see how it happens because we all work so hard to achieve the same goal.