Aspiring Writers

How I hate them.

It has nothing to do with individual aspiring writers, because they usually are pretty awesome, and many are incredibly talented (though I feel the talented ones are often looked over and the boring, unoriginal ones are praised. More on that maybe later).

Being a writer can become very selfish and make you feel very self-important. Even to under take writing a novel, you have to have tons of confidence in yourself and your writing abilities. When you have a room full of that confidence, it just gets uncomfortable.

When you are an aspiring writer, you want to think that you are the next best thing, the person who is suddenly going to break into the arena and gain millions of fans and go on Oprah. Or at least sell a few thousand books.

But the things is, publishing is highly competitive. Because (almost) EVERYONE wants to be a writer. Because everyone has their novel tucked into a drawer or a manuscript box or floating somewhere in the mail. So not everyone can gain millions of fans. Not everyone can sell even a few books.

So, when you're an aspiring writer, working in your self-important field, with the hope that you will be the next best thing, you're of course very likely to hate the person next to you. Because that person next to you is competition. You crave to be better than them. You have to think you are better than them, because they'll probably end up being published twice in their life, if they're lucky, and the only ones who actually know of the obscure magazine they got published in are the publishers of the magazine and close family members who get a copy thrust down their throat.

Thus, the world aspiring writers is a conflicting place that gives me mixed emotions every time I come into it. But maybe it's not about hating other people, but hating myself as aspiring writer, since I tend to be ultra self-important and proud as the next one.

My only hope is that my novel really IS better than the manuscript of the person next to me . . .

Disclaimer: The above is not intended to be taken very seriously.