In an article in the Irish blog Some Blind Alleys, "A Life in Literature, Or, What You May Lose By Becoming a Writer," Carlo Gebler, an Irish writer (above), has written a blistering analysis of what it's like to be a midlist (or lower) denizen of Grub Street. I've never read a more glaring indictment of what I do; and yet, of course, I will continue to do it, having no choice in the matter. Here's his take on how he feels about other writers. Sound familiar, o fellow scribblers?
"[A]ll that I see are the writers in front of me, the writers more successful than I am, those being reviewed and rewarded, féted and praised, loved and stroked, fluffed and fellated, and so on and so forth. I am filled with covetousness. I am enraged by their success. I watch these success stories obsessively and I judge myself against them; I measure myself against them. I do this all day, every day. I can’t stop. It is pointless and harmful: what I learn with monotonous regularity from these comparisons is always this: they are doing better, and I am doing worse.
"I tell myself that these writers are competitors, and I try to reassure myself that while they may be successful – some of them, of course, deserve success; I have not lost all common sense – they are not as good as I am. But the reassurance is meaningless because no matter how often I assert this, it won’t and doesn’t change anything: they’re still ahead and I’m still behind. Nothing is going to change. No one is listening. There is no god listening to me and offering to pluck me from the rear of the field and pop me down at the front. That isn’t going happen. I am where I am and there I stay."
