Comparing ourselves, and especially our writing, to others is an exercise in futility. Why? Because it's like comparing apples and oranges and kiwis. Yes, we're all fruit...I mean writers...but that's where the comparison ends. I'm an apple, you're an orange, and you -- yes, you, over there -- you're a kiwi. Our life experiences may be similiar, but they're not identical, so we each bring something different to our writing. I can't write your story and you can't write mine.
Instead of comparing our writing to each other or trying to compete with each other, we should try to improve our own writing every day. We should compare our writing today to what we wrote last year and the year before that. Has it noticeably improved? If not, why not? We should only compete with ourselves, striving to write more than we did last year and the year before.
And since we're all fruit...I mean writers...that means we're all in this publishing world together. The normal world doesn't understand us writers, so we need to support each other, lift each other up, help each other.
One way to do this is to take part in Darcy Pattison's Random Acts of Publicity, a week (September 7-10) where we take the time to post reviews of our friends' books (actually they don't even have to be someone you know). You can join on Facebook -- Random Acts of Publicity or go to Darcy's blog (which is wonderful, by the way) at www.darcypattison.com.
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