By: Margaret Huntley
I don’t know about you, but I am an insanely competitive person. I blame it on my older brother. He’s two years my senior, which was just young enough to play games with me but still old enough to be better than me at them all. This, of course, annoyed me to no end. To this day, I am constantly grappling with a desire to be the best at whatever I do and when I am not, I hate it.
Now, this would probably benefit me if I chose to pursue a career as an athlete. Instead, I chose to be a writer, whose merit is decided not on objective rules and regulations but the subjective, ever-changing opinions of the public. And I won’t lie, this stresses me out. A lot.
River Street Writer Margaret Huntley.
When I received a second-place award for one of my pieces in high school, I felt like I wasn’t a good enough writer to make it. I thought that because my piece was second place, I was a second-place writer and that wasn’t good enough. More recently, when I was published in a magazine, I found myself critiquing the whole magazine to determine if I had the best article in there.
But this is not healthy!
I used to think that writers worked alone. I thought that it was just up to me and me alone to succeed, so if I didn’t do things right, I was a failure. But this is not how the writing industry works. Sure, JK Rowling wrote her own series, but she needed a publisher before she got off the streets. Even Shakespeare needed talented actors to bring his plays to life.
I am grateful to be studying creative writing at university in such a team-oriented environment. It has taught me that all writers need inspiration, third party opinions, and colleagues to bring their works to completion. Even then, they rely on the public to consume and support their material.
Once I understood this, my competitiveness started to diminish. I know the writing accomplishments in my future will not be my own. If I continue to pit myself against others, I will hurt my career more than I will help it. The more I help other writers with their craft, the more they will help me. Not only will they be more likely to return the favour, but by analyzing their craft, I can improve upon my own.
The reality is that we are all in this together. We are all working hard to get our names out there and we all have unique writing that appeals to different sections of the public. By working together, we are able to put more quality writing out into circulation, and that is a win for everyone.
So, if you’re competitive like me, next time someone gets published in your place, learn from the experience and use it to become a team player. But the next time you lose Mario Kart to your brother, feel free to throw the remote.
Learn more about Margaret and other River Street writers here.