Jealousy

When you are someone who loves writing, you tend to find yourself surrounded by or drawn to other people who love writing too.

One such friend, my Bestie, has just completed a first draft of her manuscript. It’s an enormous moment for her, not least because it has been a while coming. But this year, she knuckled down and spent the last six months committed to the task of completing a whole first novel. And, I have the pleasure of being one of the first people on this planet to read it!

I am actually very honoured that she would even ask me. I have a front row ticket to see an actual manuscript evolve and become its best self. I have also really enjoyed the process of reading it with a kind of editor’s eye. It has been an invaluable learning experience. I am not looking forward to finishing her book because then I don’t get to play editor anymore. Who else is going to send me their manuscript?

But, I am jealous! Not of the book itself, although on reading it I am once again blown away by just how clever my friend is, but mainly of her commitment.

I am commitment-phobic, especially when it comes to doing the things I love the most; namely writing and performing. I have done one project after another, one course after another; always with the aim of galvanising myself to try and make a serious go of being an actor and writer. I always run out of steam. I just peter out. And then I get angry at myself, book another course, join another club, have another burst of energy and then that disappears again. Then, I’ll switch on TV and see actors, writers and comics I personally know on Channel 4, selling shows at Soho Theatre and Udderbelly and I’m like ‘Oh come the fuck on! Even them?’

I get jealous again. I had this conversation the other day with a different friend and she said that recently, she’d come across the idea that if you keep trying something and not getting any better or successful, it’s possible you should give it up. It’s not for you. No matter how much you love it. And I’ve been at it for twelve years.

But the thing is I do love it. I love writing, I love acting. I miss both desperately when I am not doing them, which is most days because my day job is just a job. I’m not after fame, just something concrete to show for the effort of all the times when I was really working at it.  

Should I just give it up?

I think Madonna once said something like, “For a woman, there is no safer place than your self-belief.” As I type that I realise that I have no meaningful idea of what self-belief feels like. If it were a town I would tell you that I had driven past it a few times, maybe glanced at it on a map.

The completion of my Bestie’s book and the enormous potential she has for success has thrown my lack of results into sharp focus. Yes, this is strange because technically nothing has happened yet. She has sent it to me and a few others for feedback. And yet I am irritated by her mere potential for literary achievement, by her endeavour to finish a thing and see it through. Where is my endeavour?

If I wanted to be mature about all this (and that is a massive if) I should take a page out Bestie’s book and set myself a goal with my own writing. I have twenty nine short plays between five and thirty minutes in length, at least one of which deserves a full length go. I have tried. There have been starts and stops of the kind described above.  But a lack of self-belief has always killed the endeavour.

But how about it? A goal and actually sticking to it! This website was a goal and I managed to do that.

One sixty minute play by Christmas day?

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