What to Do with the Impulse to Compare

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing, Writing Community.

a person doing graffiti on a wall using a spray paint

When my girlfriends and I used to play Barbies, we would often get into arguments. Inevitably, one girl would try to have it all. It would rub another girl the wrong way, and then bickering would start. Why is your Barbie the smartest and the best at everything she does? There was an obsession with being the prettiest, the most flexible, the funniest, the kindest. Anything we could think of, we wanted our Barbie to exceed. I’ve often looked back on these memories with shame, at what self-centered little jerks we all could be. I now recognize that this was simply our way of processing expectations and demands from the competitive and consumer culture in which we resided.

Though I like to think I’ve grown up to become a compassionate woman, who understands that truly thriving doesn’t have anything to do with all that striving and comparing, I’m not fooling myself. That competitive, insecure girl is still in there somewhere, and the worst thing I can do is ignore her. I have fallen into this trap as an artist, feeling jealous when others succeed, foolishly comparing my work to others. My craft of choice (writing) is first and foremost a solitary work, much like other crafts. This solitary nature makes it easy to get caught up in my own mental stories. Maybe music stands apart as being more immediately collaborative, but I’m not a musician, so I wouldn’t know.

So, what can we do to counteract our impulse to compare, or to envy?

Send out roots. Join a feedback group, and lean into reading the work of others with care and attention. Share the cost of a hotel room with an artist friend, and spend the weekend working side by side. Buddy up for a virtual retreat. Begin a correspondence with another writer/artist and get really curious about them. Be generous with other artists: give them your attention. Make space to admire their work, while leaving yourself out of the admiration. Most of all, be generous with your time. Really read other people’s work. Receive feedback graciously, with an open mind. When you give feedback, always do so with the intent of making it better. Discover where they are trying to go with their work, and help them get there. Understand that this giving and receiving feedback is part of a larger conversation about the craft that you want to be a part of.

What can we do with our own feelings of inadequacy? Keep going. Get playful. Do it anyway. Show up religiously to the work. Be wary of expectations. Savor the moments you feel satisfied. Savor the moments you don’t. Lean into the challenge. Do calisthenics. Free writes. Prompts. Write a stunning sentence.

Be a part of a community. Attend exhibitions, readings, and events in your area. Host meet-ups to work in groups. In short, connect. Focus less on how worthy your own work is and more on how you are building your tribe, beating your drum, creating space for others to join.

During the month of April, for the last many years (going on twenty!) I have challenged myself to write a poem a day. In the last several, I’ve focused most on inviting others to join me. I’ll be doing the same this year. Every day in April, I will be posting a prompt to Instagram, and also to Notes here for you to use if you’d like to join me in writing. Personally, it works best to keep it playful and low-pressure. I take the day’s prompt and give myself thirty to sixty minutes (depending on how much time I have to offer that day). What I have at the end of that time constitutes my poem for the day. Oftentimes, it’s just a start that I can go back to later. Every year, at least a few come out fully formed. I hope some of you here will join me this time around!

I also work as a writing coach and love helping writers gain confidence, set goals, and develop their work. For more information on coaching, email me at eatyourwords.lizshine@gmail.com.

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.